by Mehreen Ahmed
Another hot day in the savannah, the young man, barely 24 wouldn’t take his eyes off her picture on Facebook, I wrote as I looked out at a collage of zebras and giraffes farther on the open savannah. I observed the way the animals reacted to each other, the same as the man and woman I wrote about. I noted how this man would do anything for this woman on whose profile he doted.
That was odd to me, but still I wrote about them.
The man wrote secret messages to her saying he wanted to know her better; he wanted to speak to her. He even called her a few times, only to be disappointed. They chatted on Facebook, using first names as endearment. But in the indomitable spirit of youth, the man demanded more. Her profile looked pretty. He wanted to know where she lived, what she ate for breakfast. He wanted to hear her voice on the phone. Then, one day, he asked her what she did. She told him singing was her hobby and that writing, her passion. She even got awards. Was she trying to sell him her books? Was she treating him like a potential client? She asked herself, as she allowed this relationship to grow.
I took a break from writing. I put my laptop down and went into the kitchen to make some tea. I thought, they had gotten to know each other so well that she knew what he ate for breakfast every day: eggs, bread and tea. He also knew what she ate for breakfast every day: coffee. Now, those were some intimate details about each other. Should she tell him more? Egg him on? After all it was all virtual. No one had to come up front or needed to become personal. This was intriguing. I finished my tea and went back to my computer.
In the meantime, a strong storm rose. The sky was shaded in grey patches of ink smudges. She could hear the wind rage outside the closed window. Lyre of unbroken strings, a rhythm trying to push through. This pensive, pale day of mourning for labour’s lost love. How would this story turn out? A comedy, a tragedy, a humour? Where was morality in all this? Should morality even have a place? No. No. She must not indulge in this. She must tell him at once that she couldn’t go any further, prepare him for a romantic interlude. Why did it matter? Love of the heart, love of the mind, all was fair and square in affairs of love? No? A soulmate perhaps across long distance and time. Both a virtual and a virtuous relationship, that he was young, but he was also mature. She liked him. She liked him a lot. Wait! Should she block him?He was calling again. Her impulsive fingers like bare brown winter twigs, teetered on the brink of this fantasy/reality button. She went to edits option on Whatsapp. She blocked him. She quickly rushed to block him on Facebook and deleted all the messages on Facebook and Whatsapp. There, all gone, a clean slate.
Then, she sat down quietly listening to the song of the winds. There was a song in her heart too. She looked out at the night and saw two shadows making love on the opposite balcony. She ran out to see more, but she saw two potted palm fronds rubbing each other in the dark. She took her phone absent-mindedly and went back to their chat. She had blocked this man. There were no new messages about how her mornings were. Whether she had her breakfasts. If she was taking
care of herself? This intimacy, she deleted, murdered them at a brute press of a fingertip. But there were no restraint buttons on her emotion. She began to miss him.
Which way was it all going? She was going to engage him in interesting conversations. She was going to unblock him. Before, she unblocked him, she tried to remember his last messages. How he asked her every day, what she did and she had said, she wrote all day. Then he said, how come you never rest? She had allayed her fears. She felt, this man had something that pulled her. He had a sensitive heart and wanted to learn about life. He had even told her that he wanted to listen to her songs. So, should he call her? She had said no, no, never. He demanded why not, ever. She had said, she had her reasons. She had vulnerabilities. She was going to unblock him today. She had been really mean to this man. He had not done anything even remotely bad to deserve this. On the contrary, he had said he could give her a few lessons on his culture, the country he grew up in. That was rude that she had blocked him.
As soon as she unblocked him, she asked him why had he called? He apologised and told her that he didn’t mean to, it was an accident. She took him back. The usual chatting began all over. But she knew this was caprice, for her at least. What should she do? Play with his emotions a bit, feather them and brush them up in pale pink and blue with romance? The romantic flutters, the aahs and the oohs. Open up, let yourself go, revel in the warmth of young love, imagine yourself in
his deep embraces and hot sighs on your hair. He, inhaling the fragrances of your hair; lips connected. Loves entwined! Let go! Let go!
Stop! Stop right there. I took my fingers off the computer. By now, the sizzling heat had mellowed on the far savannah. The Giraffeand the Zebra had left. I looked out at the stifling sun. It dipped down the horizon. The savannah stood aloof in the backdrop of a scarred night of pimpled feral Hyenas, and wild spotted Dalmatians.
She was going to wreck him. She was going to woo him with her words, so he’d be glued to his phone. She was going to wrap him up in the powers of her poetry and beguile him so that he’d forget to eat his breakfasts; his sleeps would be a wet awakenings night sweats in the early hours. She was going to push him to the cliff where she would rule supreme like Venus, drive him to his fantasies and lock him in this gilded cage of her fling, her own little toy bird. Those sweet nothings, her magic potions, her fluttering joys. Could she be this heartless? That she would crush a half-fledged person of a man to his emotional demise? After all what was in it for her? An escape from this remarkable drudgery of boredom? It couldn’t be love. No. She couldn’t be that person. No matter how lonely, how bored she was.
I took a break again. I walked to the balcony. The heavy clouds glided across the sky in spectacular elegance; the biting winds on my face. Fly, fly away, the wings of poesy declared, a steamy romance in the air.
“Tell me, tell me, why do you not want me to call you?” he wrote.
“Because, I have problems.”
“Like what? You can tell me, yeah? Are you married? What is it?”
“No, I can’t. Forgive me, please forgive,” she pleaded. “Stop this. Does it matter if I’m married?”
“No, not at all, but I cannot stop now, I like you. I like you a lot. You cannot ask me to stop. I think, I’m in love.”
“In love with whom?Do you have a beautiful girlfriend?” her fingers trembled.
“Girlfriend? Must you ask? How did your breakfast taste this morning?”
“Good and you?” she asked.
“You had me for breakfast? How did I taste, my love, my sweetheart?”
“What? I have to go. Bye.”
She quickly logged out. She felt agitated. Next, he would want to know where she lived and try to come over. And then, and then… But she went back to the chats immediately, anyway.
“You work too hard. You should rest from your writings sometimes,” his messages lay in the chat box.
“Thank you for your concern,” she replied.
“You don’t know how to enjoy life. You’re bored and lonely, and that’s the plain truth. But you must learn to enjoy life too. Life is for enjoyment. Let me call, let me hear your voice, I’m dying to hear it. Let me hear your songs, I’m dying to hear them. How else could I listen to your songs, if I couldn’t call you?”
“No. No. No. Never, you must never ask for more than what I can give you. I don’t have time to talk,” her shot bullet words.
“Make time then. I’m going to die, if you won’t let me,” he was unstoppable.
“Love me all you like but only in your fantasy. We must never meet.” She wrote back. The click sounds were loud. She logged out. She was sitting in her bed. She slipped solidly under the quilt and covered her head. She panted awhile. This gave her a thrill, this cyber romance as much as it thrilled him. Both, waited eagerly for the next text.
“It’s raining here, today. I loverain,” she wrote.
“Are you taking care of yourself? Or drinking just coffee? Why? Are you on a diet or something?” he replied.
“Why do you care so much?”
“I don’t know. I just do.”
“You do realise that we would never meet? And that this has to be a long distance relationship, pure and sweet?”
“That is true. You’re right. But I just need to write, and write to you.”
“I understand, but I’ve to go now, bye.”
I paused. These short bursts of texts had an exultant effect on the man. He thought she was playing hard to get. I thought, it was time to end this charade. I thought, she must tell him.
Next morning, she woke up and found the phone right next to her bed. She went straight to WhatsApp. There were no new messages.
She wrote, “How old are you?”
Instantly, he replied. “24, and you?”
She thought for awhile, this restless lad, kept shooting the same message at least, 5 times.
“60.”
“Seriously? Are you kidding me? You don’t look your age at all in your profile? Tell me you joking.”
“No, I’m not, joking. Time you found a girlfriend your age.”
“Haha, girlfriend? You find one for me, okay?”
“Oh! I can’t.”
“Just joking.”
“I guess, this is it then? Goodbye,” she said.
“Girlfriends are mostly bimbos. I’d rather have one true friend, and that would be you.”
“You really are good, you know. Honest. I wondered why I continued. Now I know why. It was your purity that attracted me.”
“I know,” he said. “But you know what? I also care about you, far too much.”
After that day the texting stopped. She repeatedly went to WhatsApp, but there were no new texts. She looked at herself in the mirror and the deep wrinkles mortified her as did her wrinkly fingers, her sagging skin, the drooping lips; the ephemera reared its ugly head.
That very evening, a new text arrived.
“Hello, how are you?” the man messaged.
“I’m good, and you?” the woman replied.
Then the woman sat back and thought about his parents. What would they say, if they knew? Yet, she couldn’t bring herself to end this relationship either. There was a picture on his profile. But who knew if this was his real face? Then came another Message.
“I feel like talking to you all day long.”
“Oh, no, no you must go to work, not waste time on me.”
She thought she needed to change her role from a potential lover to a friend, to guide the young man who is so obviously smitten by her.
“Yes, yes, I know. You’re still the most beautiful woman. You get more and more beautiful with age.”
“That may be, but I am off limits, so you know.”
Her ethical senses finally kicked in.
“I love your words. I love your beautiful mind”
“Yes, you still need to go to college.”
“I know, I know. And I also know that you can only be a friend. But I love you.”
“Yes, but only as friends, okay?”
Then there was a period of no communication. She went to his profile to check for updates. There were none. She logged off. The man stopped writing. What if he has jumped off a cliff? She wondered.
Mehreen Ahmed is an award winning, and internationally acclaimed author. Her books, received The Author Shout Reader Ready Awards, 2 Bronze Honourable Mention for Moirae and The Blotted Line. And 1 Silver Recommended Read for
Jacaranda Blues. Her other book, The Pacifist, is “Drunken Druid The Editors’ Choice for June2018,” and Jacaranda Blues, “The Best of Novels for 2017 — Family Novels of the Year” by Novel Writing Festival. Her flash fiction, “The Portrait” was chosen to be broadcast by ImmortalWorks, Flash Fiction Friday, 2018.
