A Sense of Vellichor

Pain.

Pain and I are intimately acquainted…

or is it illness?

The lines blur,

and I can no longer tell the difference.

A throbbing pain engulfed my lower back, and it hurt to sit, walk, stand, or breathe, and I was left wishing the ground would open up and swallow me whole. “Now what?” my words filled the dorm room as my roommate stepped in behind me, placing our bags onto the black office chair and making herself comfortable on my bed. A silent dissent filled the air between us. We tried not to stare at the medical note and sick leave crumpled up in my enclosed fist, mutually choosing to pretend like history repeating itself was comedic rather than confronting its blatant cruelty.

Her voice broke through the silence as she picked up her phone, a flicker of concern flashing through her eyes before it was extinguished by the inevitable amusement of it all, “Now we tell Sultan.” Humour has always been our way of coping, and I needed it then more than ever. I shifted my weight onto my right foot, propping my elbow against the cold wall and leaning onto it in a desperate attempt to alleviate the burning pain that threatened to bring me to my knees. I was in agony, and I refused to let my perfectly crafted mask crack under the pressure of it all.

“Hello?” The sound of his buffered voice through the phone speaker coaxed a chuckle from me. Nothing could’ve prepared any of us for the noise of pure astonishment and amusement that left my mouth at my roommate’s response to his greeting.

“Welcome to today’s segment of ‘What’s wrong with Habiba this semester?’ I am your host, Razan Barakat, and I am here today with the woman herself to make this special announcement—” Perhaps it was the way she’d said it that had caused all of us to burst out laughing, almost as if she’d rehearsed the script a thousand times in her head and was waiting for the perfect opportunity to bring her vision to life.

Sultan wasted no time and instantly played along, making it feel as though we were hosting a podcast, “But before that, let us recap the last few semesters: to begin with, in the Fall of 2021, Habiba fractured her left shoulder due to carrying a boulder of a bag around all the time and pretending it was completely okay. In the Spring of 2022, Habiba was diagnosed with stage four meningitis, but she was able to narrowly escape death and solve her brain issues for the time-being.” His words—though lighthearted—conjured vivid images into my mind. For a moment I could’ve sworn I felt the haunting sensation of the IV liquids burning through my veins and leaving sea-coloured bruises in their wake. Memories of the ache behind my eyes and pounding migraine came back to me like distant ghosts of time, reminding me what it felt like to suffer. And I mean truly suffer.

I shook the poignant thoughts from my head and let out a shaky breath, struggling to keep my mask in place as my attention returned to the ongoing phone call rather than the resurfacing pain at the base of my spine. “—God instead decided to switch it up by sending… a man. For further clarification, he was, in fact, a stalker. In the Fall of 2023, Habiba had SMACKED her head on my car and received a stage four concussion, she was left seeing spots, unable to walk, and possibly… death.” A startled laugh escaped my lips at his choice of words. The comedic nature of his narration, along with the fact that I had undoubtedly missed a few lines when I zoned out, made it impossible for me to deny the course of my life.

It all seemed like a cruel joke, my life. Now that I was hearing it aloud. It felt as though someone was writing a story filled with an abundance of traumatic experiences for their main character, all in a vain attempt to keep the readers engaged. But when does the painful backstory become far too traumatizing? When does the author begin to feel bad for cutting into the character and squeezing their spine till it is nothing but dust and decayed dreams? When does the character get a break? When do I get a break? I found all of this funny, of course, because if I didn’t laugh then I’d crumble into a million pieces, and no one would ever be able to put me together again. Mosaics were beautiful, but I had far too many missing shards to be made into one.

“Now, here we are, Spring of 2024 where Habiba has already broken her toe, and now…” I took a deep breath, readying myself to break the news to him. As my lips parted to speak, I realized Razan had already beat me to it, an artificial cheerfulness clinging to her tone.

“She has a pilonidal abscess cyst over her tailbone and is in urgent need of surgery!”

A beat of silence passed, and there was nothing to mask the bewilderment in his voice when he spoke next, “WHAT THE F*CK—”

“It’s actually two surgeries,” I interjected.

“WHAT THE F*CKING F*CK—”

I think it was at that moment that I realized just how ridiculous my life must sound to people. Maybe I’d somehow angered every God in existence. Maybe I had done something terrible in a past life. Maybe this was karma. Or maybe, just maybe, I deserve this. The hospital was like a second home to me, and I was forced to become comfortable with the reoccurring pain. The base of my spine gnawed at my flesh, and I could hear the voices in my head begging me to put an end to it.

I hadn’t even noticed the absence of Sultan’s voice and I didn’t know when Razan left my room. I was left standing alone. A strangled whimper clawed at my throat, but I refused to let it out. I refused to let the pain win after all that I’ve endured. My eyes wandered around the room before landing on the painkillers placed on top of my nightstand, a sigh of relief escaping me. “I’m fine, I’ll be fine. I’m okay.” I muttered the words to myself as I approached the nightstand, ignoring the torturous pain as it wept for my attention and did everything in its power to elicit a reaction, to crack a piece of my perfectly crafted mask. But I wouldn’t let it. I couldn’t let it. Was I used to the constant pain or the recurring illnesses?

Over time, the lines blurred, and I can no longer tell the difference.