Living in a world of alienation and loneliness with hot summer sunshine glowing on his ramshackle, old Haydar in his dark breathless body and pale stark face sounds badly hit by the long absence of his wife who deserted him with their baby boy some 30 years ago. Blinded by the longing felt, Haydar doesn't go far from his place. Almost torn from real land and engulfed in a state of despair, life remains no longer a trace for him, he said. The only thing he is tracing is hope, but it seems a hope that only lives in his dream. The story began with the wife telling him that she was leaving for no clear reason. He thought she was kidding, but, in fact, she was serious. The very next morning his wife had gone with the kid, he said. Until he couldn't move from the steel vault of sickness, he had been looking for them in nearby villages and towns. With no hope in the horizon, he finally decided to settle down in his run-down ramshackle with a heart torn more than mortal man could stand. In a small village in Jizan, he has been waiting for their return. “I still scream their names loud in my place hoping they would answer me back. I still feel their presence and smell around me,” he said. Haydar, however, felt a rush or happiness and a gleam of hope when someone came to him with good news that the wife and the son are still alive. “Please tell them I am still alive waiting for them to return at the same old place,” Haydar told the messenger with a faint gritty tone of hope. “I am so sick to go anywhere, please tell them I am here,” he asked the messenger. Although hope starts to shine in his heart, the end seems to recall the beginning and create a sense of circularity rather than the traditional sense of closure in the Jizan man's waiting for Godot story. Old Haydar is caught in between waiting for his family to come or going out again to search for them. Is he really searching for love of his family or security of his life? For over 30 years, Haydar can't understand why his wife left him. His wife's absence has led him to many different interpretations, he said. Just like the Waiting for Godot play's premiere. – Okaz __
