I will live without you

Author's name: Ahmed Rushdi

"I have said goodbye to you. Now tell me: how do I recover from you?"
Walter Riso

Like a passenger on a slow, deliberate train, he keeps looking back at the old station he left: his familiar world, lost, whether by force or choice. Then he looks towards the next station, yet to come, where a hoped-for world awaits. The first station reminds him of where he came from, what happened, what brought him on the train, and where the hidden or apparent flaw lay behind the collapse of the pillars of an entire old world he was forced, or chose, to abandon and walk away from.
The next station reminds him of the world he must build himself, with his own weak and weary hands, and how difficult it is for a person to build a world anew alone. Between a lost world, bid farewell, and a world yet to be built, we dwell in a state of limbo, consumed by fear and sorrow, yet sustained by hope and expectation.

Life forces us to part from those we love, either through divergent paths or through the departure of one of us. As Murakami says, life is nothing but one long farewell. Or, to put it another way, the certainty inherent in every relationship is that one of us will grieve for the other. And so, every person is compelled one day to say to another: I will live without you.

About the author:
Ahmed Rushdi is a writer and researcher who previously served as Director of the Research and Humanities Studies Department at the Development Center for Studies. He studied philosophy and comparative religion at Al-Azhar University and also completed a diploma in psychological counseling. His novel, "What Is Hidden," was published in 2023, and he also wrote and directed the short film "Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow" (2023).