Chapter Text
Past screams louder than future, and to Malik, the future is mute.
The present, however, is very much noisy.
Malik lifts his gaze to find the winding path dotted with children and he inwardly bemoans their incessant chattering. This is his dwelling point in the park, his little ivory tower. Something binds him to this spot, this old bench on this grassy knoll which slopes down into this brook that babbles by.
A child shrieks in what is delight or fear when a stray cat with a pretty Golden Retriever at its tail bursts from the bushes and rushes past the group and down the path. Malik follows the chase with a lifted eyebrow before the animals fall from his sight.
His gaze climbs higher and he squints.
The sun is torrid, the sky a harsh blue with some lacy clouds here and there, and some gusts of wind.
He loathes this shade of blue. It reminds him too vividly of Kadar and thoughts of loss begin to plague him.
There is a huge rift in Malik’s life.
He is the man who owns everything but has nothing. He is a man so poor that the only thing he has left is money. He has won the crown of martyrdom, put it proudly atop his head. Malik, the king of pain. There's the homely adage that runs 'suffering makes you stronger' which implies you turn out for the better in the end. No one tells that you turn out meaner and glum, unkind and distrustful.
At the apex of his studies and the outset of his career (which settled him with a substantial family inheritance) The Accident had happened. In the months following his brother’s death Malik aged a dozen years—losing his sibling was like losing a part of himself, like losing a limb, and more.
In The Accident that took his brother Malik had suffered an injury not amenable to treatment and the laryngeal nerve trauma ended in a complete loss of voice. He could still laugh, sigh, cry. But no noise would come out.
Kadar's life insurance defrayed the costs of his operation and therapy, leaving him with the bulky inheritance to spend on nothing. He retained his job for the simple reason of being a skilled drafting technician and because his position is non-verbal.
Non-verbal.
Non-vocal.
That’s what people are wont of calling him when they want to sugarcoat it. Malik never warmed up to the term. He is mute. He finds no offense in it. He can make some airy breaths at best, if he exhales hard enough, but he essentially can’t make a sound, which is what mute basically means.
When they find out his predicament, few bother talking to him. What for inability, what for the effort it requires, what for his temper. People rarely talk to him these days. He can’t decide if that’s a blessing or curse. He is a social misfit now. He leaves work the moment first offices are emptied. In the halls there are always sounds of commotion, people laughing and talking, though the idea of going there and plastering on a big fake smile while pretending that everything is alright doesn't sound appealing. It never did. He dislikes the people around him, and dislikes himself for disliking them. Mere acquaintances leave him unsatisfied, and few people are willing to accept the burdens of friendship as Malik imagines it.
Those who disliked him used to call him ‘the boy from the desert’. Largely because of his shade of skin and his family origin. There’s a huge difference between being inside a desert and having a desert inside you.
Most people will never die, because they have never been born is what his late brother used to tell him, a motto he scribbled up during a philosophy class and never used in his paper because death snatched him away. Malik is wont of thinking that he was born once, but died when Kadar did, and he’s not sure if he waits for rebirth or for death. Deep down inside he already is dead. All he is is an empty husk of a being.
People put on a menagerie of masks every day. Make-up, clothes, a smile. He puts on his scowl. It’s his way of saying fuck you to life. And life in return replies with 'Congratulations. You have lived another dreadful day. I will see you tomorrow'. He’d shout a fat fuck you to everyone around, if he only could. What he sometimes misses is the sound of his own voice. The last recorded memory of it that he possesses he won’t even look at. Kadar is in it.
When he first was informed about the loss of his voice, he had little time and no motivation to think on it. Kadar was dead and he died along with him. It’s only after the blinding pain of his grief subdued that he realized all that he had lost.
The effort of explaining and expressing himself had become with the years more and more terrifying. What for the inability to find the right words and what for the ignorance of others he had developed almost a passion for silence.
Malik feels he would kill for a good conversation. He would talk to someone, and he is alone.
He remains sitting on the bench, taking the sun. He keeps his hand over the page that’s victim to the waywardness of a July breeze before he turns to his book—his only true friend that calms his agitated nerves—and resumes reading from where he last stopped before this distraction.
Malik is barely past the first new sentence when he hears a sough beside him, some rustle of branches in the colossal bushes to his left.
He looks up with a frown, half-expecting another badly-behaved pet.
The person that stumbles forth from the underbrush beneath is a shining example of man's stupidity.
The young man staggers out from between two heavy branches of a spruce and into Malik’s field of vision. His entrance is clumsy, his gait has a subtle sway, his eyes tightly closed in a comical expression.
The man looks like he’s scrabbling about in the dark in search for his lost dignity like a mislaid dumbbell.
Malik rolls his eyes at the idiot. It’s too early for crazy. He looks too young to be drunk at this hour anyway.
His eyes fasten on the man, but Malik never once realizes he’s following his antics with a heavy scowl. The man bends at waist, thrusts his arms out before him like he wants to touch something, his fingers outstretched.
No one stops to help. Not one soul.
People form a wide curving path around him, want nothing to do with him, save for a couple who deign him a look or turn to stare into his face, and the best they can offer is pity or disgust. He attracts little notice otherwise.
Malik feels drawn to him for no earthly reason.
The expression on his face is tight and pained and it dawns on Malik, moment by moment, that this looks nothing like drunken bouts he’s witnessed in his lifetime.
The man doesn’t look like a creature that would ask for assistance or endure pity. He lowers into a crouch until the tips of his fingers come into contact with the pavement and feels his way towards the nearest bench little to his right, the one neighboring Malik’s. When he finally sits down, Malik realizes his eyes have been closed throughout the ordeal. The man clutches at the flaking timber that makes the backrest, heaves a series of deep but quivering breaths through his nose, his frame bent into a drooping posture. Perhaps he is dizzy.
He is giving Malik sympathy nausea.
Malik has half a mind to try the luxury of doing good, to venture over and ask if he’s alright, when the man sucks in a mouthful of breath and shouts in volumes which almost make Malik cover his ears.
"MARIA! MARIAAAAA!"
Malik drops his book.
He is halfway over to check what his problem is when the man somewhat lowers his yelling and a sliver of desperation creeps up his tone.
"Maria! Bad girl, come back!"
It hits Malik like a thunderbolt when he remembers the Golden Retriever that scrambled away after a cat.
The man is facing lawn and clutching at the rim of his bench while filling his lungs with air and Malik grabs at his shoulder just in time to interrupt his incoming yell.
"Mari—huh!?"
The wide eyes that shoot up at him are too bright and too out-of-focus to look normal. Something drops inside of Malik.
Now this is a whole can of crazy.
Malik thought the man is an idiot. Now that he finds out he is blind, he knows he is an idiot.
To make light of something like this. To struggle amid a struggling world and stumble around without a walking stick or another person. To refuse asking for help.
"Who’s there?" The man demands. Malik pulls insistently at his shoulder, but he just won’t budge.
His attempts fall through the cracks.
"What do you want, asshole? Speak!" He looks up at the general direction of his face, waiting for an answer Malik doesn't have.
Malik opens his mouth, but in vain. He can’t even begin to say what he wants.
"The fuck?" He listens to his unwitting companion say when he furiously snatches up his hand from the bench and turns it over in his own.
‘M-U-T-E’ he spells carefully into the man’s open palm.
The man falls silent for a few ensuing moments as he tries to comprehend the signs imprinted into his skin, and then his mouth forms a surprised ‘oh’.
"Apologies for calling you an asshole, I couldn’t have known." He expresses his regret and his fingers enclose Malik’s hand into a warm handshake he immediately returns.
"A blind man and a mute man, what a curious company we make." He speaks to fill the void of silence.
Malik stands a touch awkwardly, forgetting why he approached the man in the first place.
"Name’s Altaïr, by the way."
Malik pulls Altaïr’s hand up again and spells out his own name, slower this time.
"Matik?" Altaïr tries. Malik joins his fingers and smacks across Altaïr’s palm in a rush of frustration.
"I don’t know if that’s a high-five or a no."
Malik slaps himself on the forehead first, then smacks three consecutive cuffs over Altaïr’s offered palm.
"OK, that’s definitely a ‘no, stupid’."
Malik sighs and writes with his index finger across Altaïr’s hand again, with long breaks in between letters.
"Malik." Altaïr says at last, and there’s a smile on his lips warm as the sun that shines down onto Malik's nape. Altaïr twists his wrist to shake hands again and Malik almost fears the chill of his own icy skin will seep into Altaïr’s warmth.
"Salaam Alaikum, Malik." He speaks barely above a whisper and Malik can’t remember the last time someone greeted him thus.
'Alaikum Salaam, Altaïr.' He writes.
While Malik helps Altaïr track down Maria (his guide dog), Altaïr explains that he is not the owner and that she is a young guide, still a trainee whose training started altogether too late.
Altaïr is not allowed his own service dog for some reason, but he applied for the public access to guide dogs and Maria has been assigned to him by the training center. Altaïr likes her, disobedient as she is. She will listen to Altaïr, but she simply has a cordial dislike for the leash and a lively spirit that gives him a headache or two.
Maria is bubbly and strong and cuddly, and shows her immediate affection for Malik by almost pushing him to ground and slobbering over his neck after he squats down to pet her.
They return Maria to the training center together and when they leave Altaïr invites him for a drink as a token of his gratitude.
Normally, Malik would be quick to refuse. But seeing how clumsy Altaïr is even with his walking cane makes him want to escort the man home, and Altaïr maintains he lives nearby.
It’s a seedy section of town where Altaïr lives.
He dwells on the first floor of a dingy building that is as uninviting as it looks. It smells damp inside and the walls of the halls are peeling away in wake of the advancing black and green mold.
When Altaïr finally unlocks the door, there is a breeze coming in through an open window inside.
Altaïr’s living place (Malik firmly refuses to call it an apartment) is something no one should live in, let alone a visually-impaired person. What he has are bare essentials. The obscure border between the kitchenette and what Malik supposes represents the living-room is so efficiently and inexpertly merged that Malik doesn’t know where one ends and the other begins. There can’t be four steps of distance between the walls. Altaïr's furniture is a collection of mismatched pieces. The walls are gray, the woodwork a peeling white, the rug jugged and dirty-brown, and flimsy furniture crammed into a tight fit. A hallway branches out into the remaining two rooms. And in all honestly, 'hallway' is a generous way of putting it.
The bathroom is altogether too small, a tight fit for two adults. It’s just as dingy and decrepit as Malik has been expecting and smells of old pipes. A grayish porcelain toilet, a moldy shower, a sink so tiny Malik is not surprised at the towel that rests below it—it’s probably there to soak in the excess water that escapes. Altaïr's bedroom is the biggest room in the flat, if that could be considered big at any rate.
The electric light bulbs hang on wires, but that’s far from the strangest detail. The off side of light switches is firmly though clumsily taped to walls. Malik feels unfettered enough to inquire about this oddity.
"Oh," Altaïr remembers, "I turned a bulb on accidentally once. Stayed on for days and nights, cost me an arm and a leg. This way I’m sure I can’t turn them on."
There is no way Altaïr is doing any better than scraping by. He is on the verge of subsistence. Malik now understands why they wouldn’t let him keep Maria.
But Malik isn't one to belittle someone else's home, even if said home is a rickety place in a shabby neighborhood.
When Altaïr stretches out his palm in offer, Malik writes ‘water’. He isn't even sure if Altaïr has anything else to offer.
He frowns at a funny plant with hoary leaves while he settles into the protesting couch, but his eyes soon shift to observe Altaïr rambling around the kitchenette.
The coarse material of his blue jeans is a touch tattered at places, much worn and faded. His plain white hoodie is innocent of any details, the t-shirt beneath is horribly wrinkled. As if an iron has never touched it, as if…
Malik scowls darkly while Altaïr sets down a pitcher of tap water and a glass with a chip in it. He snatches his hand right after Altaïr takes a place on the creaky couch beside him.
'Do you have clothes ironed?'
"Uh, not really. Never learned that properly, and I don’t see my skill improving anytime soon," Altaïr gives a chuckle to hide an emotion Malik can’t quite figure out. "I don’t want anyone’s pity, Malik."
'Pity is something that is wasted on you.'
"Thank you."
The conversation between them is slow. It takes patience for Malik to write everything out on Altaïr’s hand and it takes an effort for Altaïr to decipher everything.
'How do you cook?'
"Sometimes I fix something up." The omitted part of the sentence hangs in the air between them.
'Do you have money?'
"I get enough to pay the rent and not starve, if that's what you wanted to know." Malik's mouth settles into a grim line Altaïr can't see and he holds onto Altaïr's hand without writing. Altaïr sighs. "I don't need much. Things are worth nothing. We ascribe worth to them."
Malik wants to shake his head in utter disbelief. Here sits a man who refuses to be treated with a gravity that his condition is entitled to. He had said he despises the idea of someone following him around all day.
Malik is not even mad, he is just amazed. Amazed and concerned.
'You are a brave man.' He writes across Altaïr’s hand while he contemplates what he’s gotten himself into.
"I’d be a coward otherwise."
That’s pride talking. Malik is not fond of excessive pride.
To say that he is fond of Altaïr is a stretch, but to say that he hates him would be a lie.
Malik thinks his stupid heart has chosen the strangest moment to warm up again. He can’t leave this man to his own devices. Altaïr will protest, he’ll screech around and kick and growl like a bratty child, but Malik will take it all and he will stay at his side.
'You could use a shave.'
Altaïr laughs.
Malik has sown good seeds, he’ll see what it yields.