RIHAB: The Melting Light
(1) The Morning of Lead
On the morning of her twenty-first birthday, it wasn’t the sunlight creeping through the curtains that woke Rihab. It was an invisible weight, as if the air in the room had turned into liquid lead, settling heavily upon her chest. Rihab, the student dubbed the “Enchantress of Colors” at the Faculty of Fine Arts, found herself unable to even lift an eyelid.
This wasn’t mere youthful lethargy; it was a gradual withdrawal of the soul from the limbs. She stared at her hand resting on the white sheets; it looked foreign to her—a piece of wax that didn’t belong to her body. She tried to call for her mother, but the words emerged distorted, heavy, and tainted with the taste of ash.
“Rihab? Are you awake?” her mother, Khadija, called from behind the door. “Coffee is ready, and your siblings are waiting to celebrate your birthday.” Rihab wanted to answer, but she felt “The Fog” beginning to crawl from the corners of the room. A viscous, pale fog that made the walls seem to recede and dissolve into nothingness.
(2) The Battle of the Bath
The path from the bed to the bathroom felt like a trek across a barren desert. Every step required a Herculean mental effort. When she finally reached it and turned on the tap, she didn’t feel the coolness of the water; instead, it felt like the prickling of needles. She looked into the mirror. She didn’t see the Rihab she knew—with her delicate features and charcoal hair. She saw a “stranger.” Her features appeared blurred, as if reality itself had lost its balance behind her.
“What is happening to me?” she whispered. The reply came not from her own tongue, but from the void behind her ear:
“You are not you... and the water touching you is but an illusion.” She gasped, spinning around, but there was no one there—only the steam and the silence of the cold walls.
(3) Grey Food and the Dialogue of the Deaf
Rihab sat at the breakfast table. Her siblings were laughing, and her father, Othman, was reading the newspaper; the air was filled with celebration. They placed a slice of chocolate cake in front of her—her lifelong favorite. But as she took the first bite, she recoiled in disgust. It didn’t taste like chocolate; it tasted like soil, like dry ash.
“Why aren’t you eating, Rihab?” her father asked, his gaze searching.
“It has no taste, Father... everything has become tasteless.” Her parents exchanged a worried glance. Khadija, with a heart steeped in mysticism, felt a surge of fear: “The girl is pale, her eyes are wandering... It must be the Evil Eye! They envied her for that painting she finished last month.”
(4) The Creeping Fog
Rihab retreated to her room—her sanctuary that had become her prison. She grabbed a paintbrush, trying to make a single stroke on the white canvas, but the brush felt like it weighed a ton. At that moment, the fog intensified. She could no longer see the furniture clearly. Reality became “faded, like an old painting washed away by rain.” She could hear the neighbors outside, but their voices reached her as if coming from deep underwater.
The “Dissociation” had begun. Rihab was no longer part of this material world. She was living in her own “Limbo,” where words lose their meaning, colors lose their brilliance, and the soul lives in exile, waiting for the shock of truth that would change the course of her life forever.
