𐒖𐒐𐒁𐒖𐒖𐒁𐒏𐒘𐒘 𐒄𐒖𐒑𐒖𐒇𐒓𐒗𐒕𐒒𐒗

 𐒖𐒐𐒁𐒖𐒖𐒁𐒏𐒘𐒘 𐒄𐒖𐒑𐒖𐒇𐒓𐒗𐒕𐒒𐒗

Faadumo stood at the threshold of a world she had never known, her heart fluttering with an emotion she couldn’t quite name. The ancient streets of Xamarweyne stretched before her, narrow like the veins of an old soul. The buildings, worn by time, were rich with stories. The air hummed with whispers of history, and for a moment, she felt as though she were part of it, woven into a tale that had begun long before her arrival.

She had come from a distant region, far from Xamar and its storied walls. Her family had no ties to this place, no roots in the soil of this city. Yet, as she stood before the old house with its weathered door, something stirred inside her. It was a strange feeling, a pull toward something—or someone—who had once lived behind that door. The faded wood seemed to pulse with life, as if it were breathing, as if it held memories she could not access but could somehow feel.

Faadumo was a storyteller, a scriptwriter, and she had spent her life crafting worlds from words. But here, in Xamarweyne, it was the world itself that was telling her a story—one she didn’t fully understand. She stood there for several minutes, her mind wandering to places she had never been, to people she had never met. There was love in the air—soft, unspoken, and ancient.

“Was it you who lived here?” she whispered, though she knew no answer would come. Her heart ached with a strange, inexplicable longing. She raised her phone, snapped a picture of the door, and walked away, her footsteps echoing in the quiet streets. As she left, though, she felt as though a part of her had stayed behind, lingering like a shadow in the doorway.

Months passed, but that door continued to haunt her. Faadumo returned to Xamarweyne one evening, just as the sun was sinking into the horizon, painting the sky in hues of orange and pink. The streets were dimly lit, and the shadows of the old buildings stretched long and thin. She turned on her phone’s flashlight, the small beam of light cutting through the dusk as she retraced her steps, searching for the door that had captured her heart.

But something was different. The narrow streets looked familiar, yet the door— her door—was gone. In its place stood a newer wooden door, polished and clean, but devoid of the life the old one had held. A wave of sadness washed over her.

As she stood there, confused and heartbroken, a man’s voice broke the silence. “That’s the café now,” he said softly. “The wooden door you remember has been replaced, but the look is still the same.”

Faadumo turned to see a young man sitting nearby, sipping tea at a small table. His face was kind, but his words stung. It was as if he had told her that someone she loved had left, never to return. She placed her hands on her head, overwhelmed by the loss. “Has my door been changed?” she murmured, her voice heavy with grief. “Oh, how I wish that door were still alive.”

The man smiled gently. “This was the house of Ambassador Maxamed Cusmaan Cumar,” he explained. “He was a writer and diplomat, known for his work, Road to Zero. He was born and raised here.”

Faadumo nodded, though her mind was elsewhere. The ambassador’s legacy was important, but not to her. What mattered to Faadumo was the door—the connection it represented, the feeling it had stirred in her. “Were you the one who lived in that house?” she asked, though she wasn’t speaking to the man. Her words were for the spirit of a woman she felt had once lived there, a woman she could almost see in her mind.

In her imagination, Faadumo saw a woman—Ay-faay, she called her—living in that house in the early 1960s. Ay-faay was in her forties, her long hair flowing down her back like a cascade of dark silk. She sat by the new door in the evening, a beloved figure in the neighborhood. Faadumo could picture her clearly, greeting each passerby with warmth and grace.

In the inner room of the house, there was a large metal chest where Ay-faay kept her clothes, folded neatly in layers of colorful fabric. She dressed carefully every evening, preparing herself for a walk down Corso della Sut, the coastal street where the sea breeze would play with her hair. She sometimes met an Italian woman there, a remnant of the colonial days, who watched movies in  Cinema Xamar and returned late at night. Together, they would share stories of the city, of the world that was changing around them. In the afternoons, Ay-faay would sit among the neighborhood women, exchanging tales and wisdom, her voice strong and sure.

Faadumo felt a deep connection to this woman, even though she had never met her. It was as if Ay-faay’s life, her spirit, had somehow reached across time and space to touch Faadumo’s heart. She wasn’t sure why, but she knew that the love she felt for that door was tied to this imagined woman, to the life she had lived in that house, to the stories that had unfolded behind those walls.

As Faadumo stood there, the sun finally dipped below the horizon, and the night began to settle in. The city of Xamarweyne, with its ancient architecture and its mix of cultures—Arab, Persian, Indian—felt like a living, breathing story.

Faadumo took one last look at the new door, her heart heavy but filled with a quiet understanding. Some connections, she realized, couldn’t be explained. They just were. And though the door had changed, the story behind it—the one she had felt so deeply—would live on.

Turning away, Faadumo walked back into the narrow streets of Xamarweyne, her footsteps light, her mind full of stories yet to be told.

NB: Abdi-Hakan wrote this masterpiece as he witnessed the day I visited my door, and my heart broke with it.