By proxy

Chapter one : The prince in his white uno.

At 5 A.M on a beautifully bleak night of December in Eljadida, there is a girl, or rather a woman (She'll soon be twenty one let us not infantilize her!) having tea and some toast an maybe a couple of digestives if she's still hungry, with her early breakfast she always listens to some podcasts or watches video essays on YouTube or the likes of it to keep herself informed on the world around her. And what a world do we live in!

At around six she turns off her alarm as usual and decides to pray two rakats before Fajr so that she could be amongst the richest of this world. Even though she wakes literally earlier than the chickens, she still manages to be late.

Now it is almost eight , her phone chimes loudly in the quiet house, for her parents and siblings are still asleep and are not to wake up until a quarter or two of an hour. It was her ride, her prince in his white Uno, as she liked to call him, hiding his annoyance as well as he could and almost threatening to leave without her. Mona puts on her sunscreen and takes another look at her room to make sure she hasn't forgotten anything. Her books, pens, thermos, snacks, phone, keys, tissues, some change just in case, a bottle of water, and headphones. All of that mysteriously fit in her tote bag.

Upon descending the stairs Mona stumbled on Tux, her cat as one would imagine, short for Mr Tuxedo, because his fur is black and white as if wearing a tuxedo, as a bonus his little paws are white as if wearing a pair of white socks. He slowly blinks at her as she reaches to scratch behind his ears.

Speaking of socks, our protagonist exited the house with mismatched ones but they were well hidden under her dock martens. And so, with mismatched socks, blue fingers, a stuffed nose and fifteen minutes late, she finally was able to join an impatient Said Bennani.

- 'Come on hustle, hustle.' He said with a hurrying gesture. Mona quickened her step and when she noticed his outfit, suspenders, oxford shoes, new shirt and new tie, his jet black hair was styled , her response was:

- 'Ooh, someone's got a presentation today, what's the topic?'

- '"To what point does a person's outfit influences our judgement"'.

- 'Love the irony. She sniffed, what's this? It smells like, like Eid?' He pulls out a perfume bottle from the compartment at his right side, the label said "Eid vibes".

- "I got it when we were in Fez, there was this shop in the ancient medina called "Scents of Bih", as I passed in front of it I smelled the orange flowers with hints of oud and a little something that I can't quite describe and realised that I finally found my signature fragrance. What about you, up to anything new?'

- 'Not really. Just the usual, assignments.'

- 'Who do you have this year again?'

- 'Habib'.

- 'Right, the one we had in freshman year.'

On and on they went on talking about various topics, their speech however was not vain for they had a lot to catch up on after autumn break. They finally arrived at their school,'L'Académie Lachelier of Arts and Humanities', just as the security guard was closing the portal.

Though they were getting a bit late, Said insisted on telling Mona a joke.

- 'How many narcissists does it take to change a light bulb? Just one, all he has to do is hold it in place while the world revolves around him.'

Mona almost snorted her coffee out of her nose, but rain instantly wiped that smile off her face. She tried to take off before her concealer wiped away.