Member-only story
About Me — Subhi Najar
The Alchemist of Words
The teacher asked the 10-year-old kid, “When you add the letters together, what will you get?”
“ words”
“ And when do you combine the words with each other?”
“I’ll get alchemy,” he said. The teacher thought the kid’s answer was inappropriate and the kid himself was too arrogant and boastful.
It was the singular “sin” of that kid to know that alchemy was converting cheap metals into gold and building something more complex from simple components. Thus, he saw composing sentences as an act of beauty and alchemy.
For a while, the teacher and classmates mocked him, calling him “the alchemist of words”. It was those who mistreated and bullied that kid who gave him the most precious gift ever. Without knowing, they planted in his brain and heart all the seeds of persistence required to deserve that precious name.
That kid was me, and I am still that kid.
