SANA’A, YEMEN — It began one year ago, on a summer’s day. I was in the kitchen, busy preparing dinner for my husband, when I sensed a strange movement behind me. I turned my head and was surprised to see my neighbor.
I hated this woman from the bottom of my heart, even though she hadn’t done anything to harm me — other than being a past love of my unloving husband. Her presence surprised me, not only because we weren’t friendly enough to exchange visits, but because she had arrived at a time when most women are busy with housework.
The gate was locked. How did she manage to get in? Before I could ask, I noticed she was staring at the opposite corner of the kitchen. I turned my head to where she was looking, and I saw it: the most horrible creature in the world, huge and hostile.
He resembled a mantis. His long body filled the whole space of the room. His long tail swung through the air as he held a pair of big pink scissors in his hands. I put my hand to my mouth to stop myself from screaming. Is this real, or just the worst dream I’ve ever had? There was no trace of my neighbor. I don’t know how long I stayed there, frozen in the far corner, before the creature vanished, too.
Despite my attempts to convince myself it was only a dream, something inside me said it was too real — that I would see him again and again. I was right. The vision of this creature, always preceded by the uninvited neighbor who would quickly vanish, continued to visit me. Sometimes I saw him five times in one day; other times, three days would pass without him. Each time he appeared, I was left totally scared and afraid of the world.
People said it was a magic curse from my neighbor, who had wanted to marry my husband before I did. Others said my husband acted in partnership with her, as he had threatened me for five years that he would marry another woman because I hadn’t delivered any children after three failed pregnancies. But now we have two children, and it seems to go against what some people want.
My husband complained that I burned the food, and that I didn’t respond to my little baby’s cries of hunger. He said I spent three nights without sleeping and that made me so nervous and unbalanced. Why couldn’t he understand why I shrank in the corner of the room as the creature stood in the doorway? I couldn’t hear the crying of my little baby because the creature’s terrible voice was getting louder and louder, forcing me to close my ears tightly with my hands. I couldn’t sleep because I knew that the creature would try to kill me if I did.
“Unreal, unreal, unreal, it’s an illusion,” I would say to myself, just as my psychologist told me to. But I’m still not convinced. Whatever the physicians and the others say, for me it’s real, perfectly real.
To them, it’s an illusion, but I can see it, hear it, and feel it. This creature exists in my life, and I can’t ignore him. I spend the entire time thinking about when he will appear, and where. In the bedroom, in the kitchen, or in the bathroom? Maybe while I’m talking to my sister, walking on the street, or trying to sleep. He follows me everywhere I go and will not leave me in peace.
I know I’m not the only one in the world who suffers from such hallucinations, and that many cases like mine are treated successfully, as the Sheikhs have told me, and that I can defeat this evil spirit by reading the Holy Quran. But the period until I become “normal” again is filled with pain and suffering I may not be able to bear.
I shut my eyes to not see the creature. I shut my ears to not hear him. But I feel him inside me — in my mind and in my heart. Neither my tears nor my prayers can make him stop. Every day I come closer to insanity; I’m sure of that fact. I try to struggle against it all, but my aggressive actions are misunderstood by others as acts of insanity.
My psychologists warned me that I may develop complications, turning from “mere” hallucinations into full-blown schizophrenia, which is very difficult to treat. They said I shouldn’t be isolated from others, that I must keep in contact with people, even as my hands shake in terror and my eyes continually search for the creature. I hate to see their looks of pity and the tears in their eyes. I don’t want people to speak to me. I hear so many voices in my ears that I can’t concentrate on what they are saying. Sometimes, I can’t even remember who they are.
One day, my neighbor appeared to me. I knew the creature was somewhere in the room. I tried to escape, but he was faster. He wrapped his long tail around my leg and body before putting the scissors to my neck, preventing me from screaming or turning my head away from his ugly face, with those two big, red, inhuman eyes. He started to strangle me. I couldn’t breathe; I felt as if my lungs and my whole body would explode!
Believing I had died, the creature dropped me to the ground and vanished. As soon as I could move my swollen body, I ran to my family’s home in the pouring rain, wearing only my house clothes. I didn’t even think to wear the compulsory balto or put a veil over my face. When I arrived, I found them out of their minds with worry, not because of my appearance, but because it had taken me five hours to reach them, when the distance between our houses is no more than ten minutes. Where had I been all that time? I can’t say, because I don’t know.
The creature punished me after I told my family about the attack. He put a heavy mountain in my head and over all my body. For one week, I couldn’t move or talk. I could only moan in pain and hear the people around me saying I was “insane” and needed full-time supervision, only increasing my terrible headache.
The experience was so awful and painful that it would make anyone insane. I would prefer to die than to live it again. But it happened again. I was in a room on the third floor of my house when the illusion of my neighbor appeared. I knew that was a sign the creature was also there. I tried to run, but he blocked the door. With no way to escape and no one to help, I tried to run, to anywhere. I ran to the window and jumped.
I suffered some wounds and broke my legs and arms. But I cared less about that. I was terrified of what I would do if the creature appeared to me again. I heard people saying that they would put me in chains, as I had become dangerous and may harm others or myself.
My husband divorced me and married another woman, who I know will treat my children badly, as slaves. And this is not an illusion. I’m still sick, and they refuse to understand that it’s a sickness like any other sickness. I can’t just “get well” because I want that, and anyone, no matter how proud they are of their mentality, could become sick more easily than they think. And this is not an illusion. I’m still alone, chained in a locked room under the mercy of the creature. And this is not an allusion. I’m being strangled daily. I can’t breathe. This is not an illusion. It’s real, perfectly real.
Originally published in 2006 with the Sana’a-based Yemen Observer newspaper, where author Elham Al-Oqabi was a Social Editor, and again as part of her 2013 book of true-to-life short stories, Women Moan in Silence, under the title “Hallucination!!!”
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