There was nothing except pain and the taste of salty water.
The saltiness was biting and his mouth was dry. He barely could swallow his saliva. He asked himself, ‘Where am I? Nothing can quench this thirst except for a huge glass of water before I go back to sleep’.
He opened his eyes and started to recover his consciousness and perception of who he was and his surroundings. Night was prevailing and the morning did not try yet to breath away the darkness.
There would not going back to sleep because you, Khaled, was not having a nightmare. It was the naked, painful truth combined with some joy. You apparently managed to survive drowning.
Khaled sat up straight. Every inch in his body was aching and howling of pain and exhaustion. He looked at the beach around him trying to penetrate the clouds of blankets of darkness, but he could not see any bird flying or animal crawling.
Who could answer? Nobody. Rain was pouring enthusiastically and insistently. There was a huge weight pressing on his shoulders. He touched them to find that it was only the weight of his plastic bag. He touched it and discovered that he had not lost it. It was still holding to his shoulder like a gorilla baby.
The money was still in its place, too. Nothing was lost despite the turmoil. He was going to check if the content were alright. The first thing he should do then was leaving the beach quickly before the Spanish Civil Guard could discover the incident and start an operation to search for survivals, and how few they were.
Was that a dead body or was his imagining things?
He looked intently to find that it was the body of the pregnant woman whom he saved from drowning. He drew closer,
He slapped her on the face gently at the beginning then he slapped her hard. There was no response.
He felt her vein…placed his ear on her chest…there were not any beats. He got confused. He did not know what to do, he remembered some lessons he took from a medical society when he was at high school.
He puts his palm on his fingers and presses on her chest
1…2...3…4…5
Come on! Come on!
He opens her lips and breathes in trying to revive her lungs. Come on, kiss of life. Live up to your name and give this woman a new life, but the woman did not respond. She passed away. She would not live one hour more or less than her destiny. It was simply over.
Khaled sat by her and cried bitterly out loud.
How many kilometers had she crossed looking for a better life? What did she sacrifice? Who did she sacrifice? What dreams did she hide in her heart? How many of her family did she leave behind who were waiting her to return with the gains of the old continent?
What do you still have to live, Khaled?
Within few months you saw prison, life and death. You were the man whose life was progressing through one boring routine. One millimeter changed your life towards a course you had never imagined living one tenth of it.
Did the embryo actually move inside the uterus of his mother or were winter and tears making him see things?
He took out his carefully wrapped mobile phone and found it still working. Despite the danger of disclosing his location, Khaled turned on the flashlight on the belly of the woman which was completely naked. He did discover that there were gentle movements by the embryo inside her.
What shall I do? What shall I do? Make a call? Whom? How? Will the embryo survive until he does all of that?
Instant decisions are the solution in such cases. Khaled takes out a small, yet sharp, knife from his bag and does one of the most daring and craziest decisions of his life.
His hand was violently shaking. The first hit only did a minor scratch on the belly of the woman. He tried to focus more as he was looking up praying God. He pressed more and moved the knife slowly. The liquid of life—that had not frozen yet—ran as the belly swelled gradually.
He held the phone between his lips to be able to move his hands freely. He himself did not believe what he was doing.
Night…rain…tears... sea… pain... death… life
He could see the pregnancy harness in the rain and blood, so became more daring. He opened the belly of the woman with his own palms more and more. This was the strangest and cruelest cesarean operation ever and let it be recorded it history.
The pregnancy harness seems to him whole but the embryo inside it is kicking and kicking. Is it suffocating? Khaled rips it open, so the Amniotic fluid that cushions the embryo flows. The baby’s head emerges. He is silent and still.
Khaled extracts him. He is a soft piece of meat that does not move.
Khaled has no idea how to deal with the situation except what he watched in some movies. Is it what he has to do or was it one of the movie tricks that insist that a gaping wound is nothing but an entertaining thing for the hero who licks its running blood before continuing the mission of exterminating the evil people?
He holds the baby upside down by his feet and slaps his butt gently?
The little black-skinned being cries for the first time.
Khaled took out one of his dry shirts from the bag, cut the umbilical cord with his knife, and wrapped the baby with the shirt.
The baby did not cease shrieking. He was crying because they took him from the quietness, the darkness, and peace to turmoil and pain. Khaled hugged him to warm him up. He dialed a number and called.
Khaled ran while he was thanking God secretly that all that noise did not attract the attention of anyone across the long distance from the beach until the street. He spent ten minutes running until he reached it; the place was deserted, and there was not a trace of anybody.
He was panting as he was redialing, but the call got disconnected.
He saw lights of a coming car. Was it Muadh?
It was him. Muadh slowed down asking Khaled to get in quickly.
His eye bulged as he noticed what Khaled was carrying in his hands.
With trembling hands Muadh turned on the device.
The baby did not stop shrieking. Khaled took out of his pocket some pieces of candy he was eating to kill hunger on his migration journey.
Khaled snatched the towel, put the candy inside it, wrapped it, and inserted it inside the mouth of the baby.
Gradually the shrieking decreased. He sucked the traditional pacifier Khaled made for him and opened his eyes.
He got big, beautiful eyes. Khaled smiled to the baby.
Khaled went off while hiding his face with his shirt and went quickly towards the door of the clinic. The place was almost empty.
He put the carefully-wrapped baby at the door, backed off a bit, took a stone off the ground and threw it at the glass door of the clinic.
CRASH!
The sound was massive as if it was an atomic bomb that hit the quiet place.
Khaled came faster this time. He opened the back door of the car and then lay on the back seat.
Khaled exhausted his last muscle…last effort… last cell in his body.
He fell asleep.