My Shehrazade

 

We sit together, you start telling me a story, one story branches into another one. I am staring at you foolishly, can’t move my eyes away, as I try to memorize how you smile timidly before allowing yourself to laugh cheerfully, how your tones dance suavely when you recall a ridiculous situation or a stupid reaction of someone you knew, how your eyes, your beautiful eyes, travel away in another world for less than a second. A world that I did not know, we were not together, a past, a past that may be one day you will tell me more of its details. I blinked and stole a quick moment to check the time on my mobile screen, I sighed while holding my cup of coffee tightly, and stretching my legs a bit. “Why do you have to leave now?” you asked, and this time I wanted to believe that you wanted me to stay, that you really don’t want me to leave, that it was me who is putting an end to such an enchanting meeting. I stutter, and reply, “I have to…” “But you ….” You stop and your smile vanishes as you move your fingers along the rim of your cup. You know what….I just want to forget everything and everyone, and stay where I am , next to you, and be part of these stories.

I met you after wasting long years in a mundane journey, I crossed barren deserts with no mirages and when I came across your lush gardens by coincidence, I realized that I am not allowed to stay. You were patient enough to show me that I cannot fight for our love, too weak, too afraid or just an ordinary man. Ordinary men don’t deserve such love. I regret meeting you for a second, and then I spend the rest of my day regretting that I regretted meeting you, I am sorry, but love is cruel, and I can’t escape the trail I have been dragged along, they say that there are people that I am supposed to be responsible for, that I have a duty, I have an obligation. They say, that whether I realize or not, but continuing such dull life is my quest. Some men are destined to wade in their lives alone, while bearing and responding to all the noise of those surrounding them, raise the kids till they leave, visit the doctors and take their vitamins, pay the bills and worry about their savings, these men are not allowed to love. Isn’t easier if they don’t believe in love? Denying love would keep them sane and content, and contentment is not happiness, not even close to happiness.  Is not encountering love would have been a real blessing? How can I keep whirling in my life now, knowing that we could have been together if… if only I was as brave as one of the heroes of your 1001 nights?

My Shahrezade is quite now, and I am still lost in the maze of her stories and the pain of my love. “Ok, I will tell you that story next time, but it may be boring…” I interrupt her quickly, “your stories are never boring”.