Sartre said, ‘Hell is other people’.
Facebook says, ‘Heaven is other people even if these people were only virtual, unknown creatures that do not really care when they hear you are sick or dead.
It was one of the Zohra’s most enjoying moments to sit with those virtual creatures in the blue world at night after finishing her job or study.
Brussels is not the city of dreams, and the sky there does not rain gold nor silver. This was what the 18-year-old Zohra discovered after she had seen and heard a lot of friends and relatives never cease grumbling when they returned home as they kept comparing between the ‘great’ Belgium and the ‘terrible’ Morocco. However, she found that the truth was different, and there good and bad in each place.
Migration has disadvantages, but homeland has tiny slips.
She managed to obtain the Baccalaureate painstakingly and came to Belgium to study history with her cousin who was also her friend.
To be able to afford for the cost of studying and living, she dedicated four days to study and three to work. Her aunt was exerting massive effort to make her feel as if she had not left her family house, but she could not tolerate being a burden on others especially after seeing how everything was minutely calculated. There were a lot of expenses, and the government would take any remaining money as taxes while rubbing its hands in glee.
She entered her room and got into her warm bed. She put her laptop on her lap commenting, complimenting, feigning a smile, and accepting all friend requests. She would delete and block anyone once they exceeded the limits.
She uploaded a photo Tangier in the past, and someone posted a provocative comment.
She was wondering, ‘Why would someone who doesn’t like something take the trouble to comment on it?’. Things were simpler for her than taking all this trouble, ‘If you don’t like something, don’t play attention to it’.
Her forefinger went to the ‘delete’ as she used to do. Her forefinger retreated one millimeter away … a little more or a little less. She decided to reply, so she might discipline him although she knew well, in light of her blue experience, that nobody would learn a lesson. All people thought themselves right, they thought themselves awesome, and they thought ‘others will regret ditching them’.
One man or woman would write, ‘I don’t regret you left me after you’ve found me because it made me discover what a ‘treasure’ I am!’
Dear Lord! How many treasures are there on Facebook? They are as many as there is foam in the seas.
Facebook abounds with a strange case of masochism associated with narcissism. It enraged and provoked her, but she was anyways having fun. It was a different life she was living away from any nervous pressure in the merciless migration.
That person responded, and his reply was less sharp. Cool. It seemed that her reply had a positive impact for the first time in the history of Facebook. She wrote him some neutral things that did not push him back nor invite him to continue the discussion. He wrote her a bit of information she knew for the first time about Tangier via a private message.
It seemed he unwittingly knew which side of her bread was buttered. She was fond of Tangier and an infatuated lover of that city. Tangier withholds the souls of those who depart her leaving their bodies empty like roots of hollow palm-trees. She will only give them their souls back when they return to her.
She reservedly responded asking for more information. He narrated more stories she did not know about Tangier dazzling here completely. He was funny and his language was highly eloquent. He sent her some amazing photos of Tangier that she had never seen before.
He showed her a photo of Tangier wheeled hockey in 1950s, a photo of the first postman in the city, international movies that were shot in the 1940s, paintings of Delacroix, a video about the city that was shot in 1932.
She did not feel how time passed at all. It was as if she was discovering her Tangier for the first time. She understood then why she was in love with this city. It was only then why she understood why Tahar Ben Jelloun once said, ‘We may know why we don’t like Tangier, but we’ll never know why we like it’.
We do not know why we like Tangier, Tahar, because she has not yet unraveled all her secrets, and she will never do. How amazing is love when it is blended with ambiguity. When you feel that your lover will always offer you new things every day until you pass away.
The moto of Tangier is ‘The most beautiful things are those that you haven’t discovered yet’. As such, Tangier mixes her love to you and your love to her with limitless suspense.
She only wished that the stranger would not ask for a rendezvous because she was fed up with that kind of wicked people who feign smartness. These people start talking with a halo above their heads, but after they feel they have got firm grip over their victims, they remove the pious attire and disclose the horns on their temples as they try to trap their victims. Then came the moment that she confessed she enjoyed it—remove and block that user, dear Facebook. May God never deprive us from you.
The strange thing –which was strange indeed—that he did not. He ended the conversation politely and said goodbye. As they chatted frequently, she discovered how much infatuated he was in Tangier, too.
The truth was she did not meet in that blueness any encyclopedic person until then at least in relation with Tangier. After one week passed, and she discovered the whole Facebook became the strange person and that strange person become the whole Facebook.
His username on Facebook was the Emigrant Tangierian. It alerted her to that she did not ask him about his name thus far despite that having apparently his real photo as his profile picture. She asked him while fearing that it would disclose some longing.