The Small Door at the End of the Street

The Small Door at the End of the Street

A Child’s Dream, Written in Blood and Hope.

Every night, I would go for a short walk, leaving for half an hour and then returning. On my way, I would see a girl who was no more than seven years old. She was chasing butterflies around one of the lights hanging on the fence of a house. Her appearance and clothes caught my attention. She was wearing a torn dress and no shoes. She had long hair and green eyes.

At first, she didn’t notice me passing by, but as the days went by, she started looking at me and smiling. One day, I stopped her and asked her name. She said Amani, so I asked her where she lived. She pointed to a wooden room next to the wall of one of the houses.

She said, “This is our world. I live here with my mother and my brother Khalid.”

I asked her about her father, and she said, “My father worked as a driver for a large company, but he died in a traffic accident.”

Then she ran off when she saw her brother Khalid running out into the street.

I continued on my way, and day after day, whenever I passed by, I would stop her to strike up a conversation. I asked her, “What do you wish for?”

She said, “Every morning, I go to the end of the street to watch the students go to school. I watch them enter this small world through a small door, wearing uniforms. I don’t know what they do behind that fence. My wish is to wake up every morning, put on their uniforms, and go through that door to live with them and learn to read and write.”

I don’t know what attracted me to this little girl. Maybe it was her resilience despite her difficult circumstances, or maybe it was her eyes. I still don’t know the reason.

Whenever I passed by that street, I would bring her something: shoes, clothes, toys, food. She told me once that a maid working in one of the houses near them had taught her to knit and embroider, and she asked me to bring her some fabric and sewing tools. I brought her what she asked for, and one day she made a strange request.

She said to me, “I want you to teach me how to write the word ‘I love you.’”

We sat down on the ground, and I began to write the words I love you in the sand, illuminated by a streetlight. She watched me and smiled. Every night, I wrote the words I love you for her until she mastered writing them beautifully.

One night, when the moon was absent, I went to her. After we chatted for a while, she said to me, “Close your eyes.”

I didn’t know why she insisted on that, so I closed my eyes and was surprised when she kissed me, then ran away and disappeared into the wooden room.

The next day, an emergency arose that required me to travel out of town for two weeks. I couldn’t say goodbye to her, so I left, knowing that she would wait for me every night.

When I returned, I missed nothing in my city more than I missed Amani. That night, I rushed out and arrived at the meeting place before the appointed time. The streetlight under which we used to sit was not lit. The street was quiet. I felt something strange.

I waited a long time, but she did not come. So, I turned back, and for five days I came every night but couldn’t find her.

Then I decided to visit her mother to ask about her, thinking she might be sick. I gathered my strength and went to the wooden room. I knocked timidly on the door, and her brother Khalid came out, followed by her mother.

When she saw me, she said, “Oh my God, he’s here! I described you just like you—” and then she burst into tears.

I knew then that something had happened, but I didn’t know what.

When she calmed down, I asked her, “What happened? Please answer me.”

She said, “Amani died. Before she died, she told me that someone would come looking for her and to give him this. When I asked her who it was, she said, ‘I know he will come looking for me. Give him this piece.’”

I asked her mother what had happened. She told me that Amani had died one night.

“My daughter felt very hot and weak, so I took her to a nearby private clinic. They asked me for a large sum of money for the examination and treatment, which I didn’t have, so I left them and went to a public hospital. Her condition was getting worse. They refused to admit her on the grounds that she had no file at the hospital. So I went back home to put compresses on her, but she was dying in my arms.”

She burst into bitter tears.

“She died.”

Amani died.

I don’t know why my tears betrayed me. They betrayed me because I couldn’t cry. I couldn’t express my feelings with tears at that moment. I don’t know how to describe my feelings. I can’t. I rushed out, and I don’t know why I didn’t return to my home. Instead, I took to the streets.

Suddenly, I remembered the thing Amani had given me. I opened it and found a small square piece of cloth. It was beautifully embroidered with the words I love you, mixed with drops of clotted blood.

My God, I understood the secret behind her desire to write those words. I now knew why she had hidden her hands during our last meeting. Her fingers were suffering from the pricks of the needle she used for sewing and embroidery.

It was the most sincere word of love in my life. She wrote it with her blood, with her wounds, with her pain.

That night was my last night on that street. I didn’t want to return to it again, for although it holds beautiful memories, it also holds memories of pain and sadness.

A message to every mother who wakes up in the morning to wake her children, wash their faces, comb their hair, put two cookies in their school bags, and bid them farewell with a broad smile—don’t they deserve life?

A message to every businessman who buys shoes at a low price only to sell them at many times their worth—don’t they deserve life?

A message to every owner of a private hospital—has your goal become to trade in people’s lives?

A message to every doctor in a public hospital, and to every person with a conscience—have you forgotten your noble goal of helping people recover from illness?

Don’t Amani and the others deserve life?

A message to everyone who has passed by the street where Amani lived, looked at the wooden rooms, and smiled.

A message to everyone who paid millions for trivial things.

Don’t they deserve to live?

Amani is dead. But there are thousands of Amani.

Come, let us awaken our hearts, even if only once. How beautiful it is to make a poor person smile, even with a tear on their cheek.