The Abyssinian owl

I’m lying on a hospital bed with a long knitting needle lodged in my buttock. My parents are outside the room for now, and I’m trying to process what just happened. This situation is so cartoonishly absurd I can hardly believe I’m awake.

This whole scenario could’ve been avoided if I weren’t so childish. It was a regular Tuesday night, and my sisters were in the kitchen heating up dinner. I walked toward our living room chair and saw the blunt knitting needle my sister had just been using. Thinking the needle would stay flat on the couch, I jumped onto the chair and heard a tearing sound upon landing. The needle wasn’t on the chair anymore when I sprang back up. That’s when I knew I’d messed up.

I slowly pulled down my pajama pants to see what had just happened. There was no pain or blood. Nobody in the family witnessed what had just happened. The needle was anchored to my butt as if it’d always been there. Only about two or three centimeters of it was visible.

Panic-stricken, I tried gripping that part to pull it out, but my fingers kept sliding away.

So, I ran to the kitchen to find something I could pull the metal out with. I tried using different tools, but this thing was stuck.

That’s when I gave up and told mom what happened. She tried to hide her panic from me, but her face always betrays her. We threw on our abayas and scarves and ran out of the house. We live in the inner parts of the neighborhood, and we couldn’t find taxis where we were. So, mom was running around our streets to stop any car she could while I waited on the curb with my legs bent outwards.

Never had I been as angry at our inability to drive as I was at that moment

‘Stop! Stoop! It’s an emergency!’, she kept yelling in Arabic.

After a few minutes, a young Saudi man and his friend stopped for us. Mom quickly explained what happened, and we got into the back of the car. Since I couldn’t sit, I stood leaning the whole ride to the nearest hospital.

I don’t think I’ll forget those two men’s afros and the good wishes they left us with.

When they dropped us off at the hospital door, I did a funny walk to the receptionist, and we explained what had just happened—and it’s like the story sounds stranger every time it’s told. We were soon rushed into one of the rooms.

He ordered an x-ray, and I got the x-ray taken. I never knew I could contort the way I did while being ordered to reposition myself on that x-ray plate.

By the time the images were being examined, my dad had appeared in my room. I’d never seen him so worried before. He’s generally better at concealing his emotions than mom, but I’d never seen his eyes betray as much fear and helplessness as they had today. He patted me on my head the way he used to do when I was little.

‘Does it hurt?’ he asked.

‘No. What’s the doctor saying?’

‘We don’t know yet.’

I felt so guilty for making my parents go through this. After a couple of minutes, he seemed to want to escape this reality as well. To make him leave, I asked him where mom was—and he went out looking for her.

Now I’m alone with my thoughts in this sterile, pastel-colored room.

Is this the end for me? Are fifteen years all I’ll get to have?

Is this all a dream? It barely even hurt when the needle tore through two layers of fabric and cut through my flesh. The whole thing felt bizarre: I had even seen the needle on the chair while sitting on it. I had thought, ‘maybe I should move this now,’ but somehow didn’t carry through with the idea.

Isn’t this the level of stupidity one shows in a dream?

The sound of something dropping outside my room snaps me out of my stream of thoughts. I let my eyes wander around the room and spot a painting near the foot of my bed.

There it was, perched on a branch with its eyes wide open. This whole time, the painted owl was staring at me, amused.

I start laughing at the absurdity of my situation and the beauty of this coincidence.

It’s an Abyssinian owl! My dad told us that growing up in his small village in Ethiopia, he and his friends had managed to train an owl they named Selam to deliver letters between them.

At first, they used to do it for fun. But at some point, my dad and his friends got even more determined to succeed with their training to prove the villagers who mocked them wrong.

But when his closest friend’s family moved to a neighboring village, and the country went through a civil war, they also used Selam to check on each other.

Sometimes, they only wrote a couple of sentences explaining that they were okay before sending Selam away with the messages. They did this until dad had to leave Ethiopia.

Selam’s tale was the most fascinating story dad had shared with me about his birthplace. So, I researched the bird extensively and found stories of other people who trained these animals.

This owl transported me from a cold hospital room to one of my father’s core memories in a matter of seconds.

Suddenly, I start viewing the night through a different lens. I begin to see what that owl must have meant to my father and his friends during difficult times. I’m inspired by my dad and his friends’ faith when writing each other letters, expecting an owl to deliver it to the person in mind. I think: What if I write something like that for myself? Something I’ll get to read if (and when) this is all over?

Immediately, I pull out my Blackberry from my pajama pants and start writing about the beauty of finding an evocative print in a gloomy hospital room.

A few minutes later, dad walks in with mom and my doctor. I don’t like the look on their faces. The doctor is talking about surgery and that I may need to get a hospital slip in case I lose my virginity. Isn’t it absurd to think of a teenager’s virginity and future in society while that very future is being threatened?

‘Is surgery necessary though?’ dad asks.

The doctor answers, ‘We don’t know what the needle might have gone through on its way in. And it has a hook at the end of it. So, we need to cut her open to take it out safely.’

He points at the large white line on my x-ray image, and I crane my neck to have a look at it too.

‘Let’s get another opinion?’ dad asks us. Mom and I nod.

The doctor shrugs his shoulders, wishes us well, and leaves the room.

I point at the owl painting and ask dad whether that was the owl he told me about.

‘Yep. That’s the Abyssinian owl’

I see him smile for the first time tonight. I still can’t sit, so I’m writing on my phone in an uncomfortable position throughout the car ride to the next hospital. Dad knows some doctors there, so he was hoping to get their opinion.

Then, I put my hand on mom’s shoulder for some time. This woman had been through so much because of me.

I don’t feel any more pain than I had a couple of hours ago. Mom just holds my arm as I do the same funny walk to the hospital. I hear the wild story being told again, and we’re ushered into a room with a young Saudi doctor. I tell him everything that happened. His sense of calm is contagious. He asks me to lie on my stomach and lower my pajama pants. I do.

He holds the end of the knitting needle with his gloved hand and tells me to scream if the pain gets too intense. The doctor then twists the needle a couple of times and pulls it right out. He holds it up in the air for everyone to see.

I’m free!

I pull up my pants and stretch out my hand to receive the needle. My parents thank him, so profusely he becomes uncomfortable. We leave the hospital dazed and in disbelief. All the doctor recommended we do is get a tetanus shot somewhere else. So, I sit comfortably in dad’s car for the first time that night.

In the hospital room I go into to receive my tetanus shot, dad bumps into an old friend from his village in Ethiopia. He was from the same village! They embrace and go through decades worth of updates in minutes.

‘Do you remember that owl you guys rescued and trained to deliver letters?’

My dad erupts in laughter.

‘You will not believe it if I told you my daughter found a painting of an owl that looked exactly like Selam in her hospital room,’ dad answers while pointing at me.

I look up and flip my phone to show them what I’d been writing about.

‘Dad, you have no idea what Selam meant to me tonight,’ I say, too stunned to utter anything else.

Who knew a bird could deliver so much hope?