Khaled was panting when he was mending his pace to reach the American Museum. He was happy that the news said nobody was harmed, but he was still worried about his friend. He was not actually concerned about any psychological damage. Psychological damage is a matter left for another group of people; those who visit a doctor whenever they feel a bit tired. One of Khaled’s recent discoveries was finding out the name of a new disease “La fatigue” which would mean tiredness if his translation was accurate.
Tiredness is a disease!
Walking is a sport!
How fantastic! For him walking was a daily activity he did not pay attention to, whereas other people would consider it a sport. Everyone has their own point of view.
There was a big crowd gathering around the crime scene. He was very well aware that most of them were nosy people who were not interested in the incident itself; all they wanted was knowing more to narrate to their friends when they would meet at a corner of at nightfall.
He made his way through the crowd with difficulty. When he reached a metal security barrier, a policeman stopped him sternly. “Entry is completely prohibited”, the policeman said and turned to his colleague to resume a conversation abruptly interrupted.
In their youth, people may do a lot of stupid things. Such a thing might be publishing a literary paper out of their own pocket money. Nevertheless, under certain circumstances some stupid things are better than others. Khaled showed the policeman the journalist ID of the paper he published in one of his crazy decisions.
The policeman’s face seemed baffled when he examined the ID. His colleague came closer and faking wisdom on his face. He scratched his chin while examining the ID from behind his colleague’s shoulder.
A laughter was about to escape. It seemed a pretty reasonable stupidity that he had chosen the name ABC for his paper because it did not reveal the literary genre of the paper. It was a name that would fit well everywhere.
Mahdi was resting his head on his forefinger and thumb and lying his exhausted body on a plastic chair. Feebleness was evident on him. Khaled drew closer to him and patted his shoulder in condolence
He knew well that speaking in such situations could add insult to injury, so he let Mahdi initiate the conversation while sitting near him on the ground.
Khaled felt that his friend was feeling guilty as he was the security guard in the area.
He left the place and looked at the complete chaos of people. He visited the museum once in the past. He was still able to remember how he tried for long minutes trying to escape the looks of Zohra or Zahrliza (The Moroccan Mona Lisa). He was trying to prove that there was something wrong in its ‘Monalisic’ nature.
It was because of his childish stubbornness, and that desire to prove that what we have does not match what we import from the west. He used to think so, but the passage of years made him wiser, and he became aware that his country and city had more antiquities and traditions than the whole world.
When he took his mobile out of his pocket to check the time, he remembered that it went off because its battery ran out. He remembered too his rendezvous with Huda in Villa Josephine Café in Jebel Kebir.
He remembered that Huda asked him yesterday in a quick Facebook chat to see him in the morning in the café to enjoy looking at Tangier stretching and shaking off her laziness and the remnant dews.
They agreed to meet at 11 am. He asked a passer-by about the time, and it was 11:30. He was 30 minutes late. He loathed himself because he always hated waiting even if waiting for a friend let alone making a woman wait a man she just knew!
He took a taxi and asked the driver midway to wait for him to withdraw money from the ATM. He arrived in the Café after 15 minutes. Just before he got out, the taxi driver said,
Oh! The driver was talking all the way! How could not he hear him? His body was in the car, but his souls was sitting with Huda in the Café apologizing and asking her to wait for some minutes.
He entered the café and looked at the faces of the customers in the terrace, but she was not in there. He looked for her in the internal hall, but there was no trace of her, too.
He had earlier asked the waiter to charge his phone. He tried several times to call her, but that was in vain.
The night fell quickly, and the darkness of night took over light. He went back to his apartment and logged into his Facebook account waiting for Huda to show up any minute.
The website was as empty as a ground that just witnessed the end of a battle. The wind was whistling in the virtual, blue world. It was a gloomy wind.
It seemed that what he feared had already happened.
There always has been worse than the worst.
What is worse than no relationship is an amputated relationship.
What is worse than absence is an absence when you cannot reach the missing person.
What is worse than loneliness is a companion who suddenly disappears without a logical reason.
He let out a deep breath full of exhaustion, anger, and sadness. “For lord’s sake where are you, Huda?” he exclaimed.