Khaberni - The man walked in his house as one who has lived for a long time in a narrow corridor between life and its shadow; he watched the air before he breathes it, and listened to the echo of his steps before stepping. It was not the fear of making a mistake, but of a woman who saw in herself a sun that should not be questioned, consequently turning love into an absolute state, and giving into a court that only issues one verdict: that he is lacking… no matter what he does, and no matter how much he burns to illuminate.
She shone with an artificial glow, as if she hid behind her brightness an abyss without resolution. The closer he got to her, the more that abyss swallowed him with a serene smile that skillfully practiced sabotage but could not love as well as it could act. The man began to measure his words by a scale that knew no mercy, and felt his existence as one who suddenly lost his map; he asked for calm that was always delayed, and searched for himself in a house where the noise grew louder, unnoticed, a noise resembling the trembling of glass about to shatter.
In this fractured light, the child grew on the edges of fear; a small shadow following his father's, asking what drove his father to silence when he wanted to speak, and to apologize before a mistake occurred. He learned early that childhood could be suffocated in a theater where emotions were manipulated by strings, and that a mother who was supposed to provide security could deprive him of his right to be himself, rather than a polished image hanging on the wall of her narrative.
Every morning, she would drag him to her mirror, asking him to see the world as she desired it, to smile in a way that pleased her, and to cry as much as it served her story. Over the days, the child stored the fear in his chest like a damp stone settled at the bottom; it neither sunk nor floated, but remained heavy on his heart.
As for the father, his years were like stones piled on a shore carved by patience itself. He realized that the patience he once saw as a virtue had turned into chains that bound him, and his sacrifices, which he once boasted of, became wood that burned without warming anyone. Yet, inside him remained a flicker of hope, a tiny spark unseen but unfading, guarding what was left of his humanity.
When the divorce happened, it was not just an ordinary separation, but an earthquake that erased his old maps, and left him standing in front of a strange mirror seeing a man he did not recognize. Language broke in his mouth, certainty dissipated from his eyes, and the future looked like a terrifying blank page. Yet despite the collapse, he did not fall. That faint spark began to ignite, guiding him on a path he had never crossed before: the path back to himself, a return resembling the gathering of light from among the shards of broken glass.
While he was gathering his soul as one gathers scattered pearls in the darkness of a room, his son was observing him. He saw how a shattered man could rebuild himself, and how the heart grows when it understands that survival is not an escape from pain, but an honest crossing through it.
As the son matured, he sat in front of a therapist and said with a voice resembling the rustling of a leaf hesitating in the wind:
"I want to understand why I always felt guilty about things I didn’t do."
That sentence was the key that opened a door that had been locked since childhood. Before him unfolded the child he had long concealed, the anger he buried to maintain peace that wasn’t really peace, and the memories that his mother reshaped as if she were carving history with a single hand that saw only what it wanted.
He learned that love is not bought with obedience, and that the guilt he carried was a burden he did not create, and the pain he had always feared was an echo of terror his heart had not birthed.
Over time, the son became a beacon for himself. He saw his father not as a defeated warrior, but as a fighter who concealed his sword so as not to hurt his child, choosing silence as a passage to the shore of survival. He realized that manhood is not about screaming or dominance, but about the ability to survive without corrupting the soul.
However, the narcissistic mother did not stop. In the post-divorce phase, she wore the masks of both hero and victim, monopolized the narrative. She narrated her story with astounding persistence, altering its details like shadows changing shapes on a cracked wall. She made herself both the heroine and the victim, rendered the father a faceless shadow, and trapped the children in a narrative that slowly devoured their memory; she not only prevented them from seeing the truth, but also from seeing themselves.
She toyed with their emotions under the guise of refined affection, presented to the public the image of the ideal mother, and concealed within her a woman who would not accept difference, refusing that the child have a heart that did not orbit around her, or a memory that did not pass through her sieve.
But the father and son eventually realized that surviving wasn’t a battle against her; fighting narcissism is like chasing a shadow in a room without windows. Survival is about giving oneself the right to breathe, and giving the child the right to acknowledge: "This is me."
It is about reclaiming memory from the clutches of fabricated stories, and reminding the soul that love cannot be measured by loyalty, and that self-respect is not a crime.
On one cold evening, they sat on a balcony that no longer trembled. The son said while looking at the sky that had regained its blueness:
"We have survived … somehow."
The father smiled a smile that carried the desires of tiredness and its kindness, as if the light that had been strange was finally a familiar guest.
Since that night, he has walked with straight steps, seeing the world with eyes that do not tremble. He understood that a person does not build himself all at once, but stone upon stone, and that a wound, when placed in the hands of awareness, turns into a window through which light enters.
And as for the son, he stepped out from the shadows of the mirror, stepping into his life without lurking fear. He saw himself as he is: independent, mature, capable of loving without merging, and trusting without permission.
Together, they grasped a profound truth:
That narcissism is not a war between people, but a struggle between the soul and its shadow.
And that life, no matter how dark, always carries a small crack of silent light, just enough that tilting towards it expands it.
In that light, a new story was born:
A story of recovery like dew, of love without mirrors, and of footsteps made of awareness not fear.
A story of a soul that understood that pain, when comprehended, turns into strength, and that ashes can be the beginning of a purer fire.
A fire that illuminates, and does not consume.
