"Beautiful Tragedy" by Sahar Rahmani ('18)

              Is it? Is it really “reverse evolution” that I’m experiencing, like my wife says? Frankly, I do not know how all this happened. I was a normal human being up until last night; it must have happened overnight. I am an ape now. I feel as though my body is transforming, maybe transitioning to the next state. I don’t know. I wonder, why has this happened to me out of all the people in the world. I have so many questions, yet it is unfortunate that I am unable to answer any of them.

            I am a sea turtle. Is this normal? Will everyone get to experience this eventually? I do not quite have an answer for that, but perhaps my wife is right. After all, humans at one point, were monkeys and maybe we are going to be them and/or other animals again.

            I am a baboon now. And it is so frustrating that I am unable to speak. I love my wife. I want to be able to speak and tell her about my thoughts and questions. People from my job call and ask for me, but my wife tells them that I am sick. I miss my job; I miss my normal daily life when I would be sad and angry about the world together with my wife. Surprisingly, sadness in this state is the only thing that makes me feel better and connects me to my human life, since I was sad then and I am sad now. As a matter of fact, I feel humiliated that I cannot explain this to my wife. It hurts me to see her so worried, confused, and lonely. And I am sure she feels the same way about me. It must be so hard for her to know that she does not have a husband anymore, that she does not have anyone to discuss poetry with in the middle of the night, that nobody will wake her up at night to tell her that “there is no space for anything but dreaming”. She is in pain and I am numb. I miss being human.

            I am a salamander, a small one. “Ben,” she whispers, “do you remember me? Do you remember?” I want to answer her; I want to scream, loudly, that I love her and that I wish I had forgotten her so that I would not be in so much pain right now, but I can’t. I can’t. It is too late now. She has released me in the big world of seas. I honestly have no idea where I will end up, but I know that she made the right choice. It is better for the both of us, she can continue to move on with her life and not worry about me, and I can swim and wander without direction. I miss my human life and I miss my wife, but then again, perhaps in the next life we would both end up together as apes or sea turtles or as small salamanders. Or just as humans without neither or us having to experience “reverse revolution”. Hopefully.