Science fiction. A dream

Science fiction. A dream

She was barely 21, and she was very beautiful, and on Friday when I was enjoying my morning reverie of being engrossed in its stillness. My morning calm was disturbed by a loud and erratic knocking on the door. It was Touleif, my old friend. I could tell this when he screamed in his huffy voice, "Jamsheel open the door, it is important!"

I hurried and just managed to slip my right foot into my slipper and my left foot that was still struggling to locate the other slipper, had to adjust with the fact that it shall be ogled at by Touleif with great amusement. Anyway, there I stood at the door with a slipper in my right foot and the left foot trying to hide behind the right leg.

Touleif looked at me, and then as he stared at my feet, I am sure he must have been reminded of a Pelican standing in water on one leg. Nevertheless, I am not concerned with what he was thinking about. Me or my feet, because he straight away came to the point and said in a surprised state, "Jamsheel, Mahreeib is missing. She has not been seen since midnight!"

"What!" was my spontaneous and only reaction.

He held me with his hands, by placing them on my shoulders and helped me to locate my chair. And made sure, I had occupied it. Then he hurried to get a glass of water for me.

It appeared as if he had practiced this at his home because he knew how I would react on hearing this news. Maybe he had, if not literally, but in his mind he surely might have practiced it several times before deciding to share this news with me, early in the morning, when my thoughts are usually vacant. Because that is how I like my mornings. A little silent, a little quiet, a little slow because then once I am dealing with the day and its demands, I tend to be very fast. So, I use my mornings as a silent meditation that prepares me for this bout with the day. But this should not be mistook as my vow to silence and inaction in the morning. I am extremely active in the morning and I do a lot of things. I can be very indulgent in the mornings too. But in the morning, I on purpose keep the pace slower than usual.

Anyway, back to where I was. I believe he had practiced it. Because he knew I loved her, and I loved her a lot. He knew it and he was right!

Mahreeib also knew it, because she was the only one before whom I liked acting a bit stupid. So, I guess she interpreted it as the stupidity of a person in love with a girl as charming as she.

But at the moment, I felt devastated because I did not know where to find her, and more than anything else, and to be honest, I did not know who else to love except her. And Touleif knew this about me- A romantic who does not fall in love easily, but when he does, it is completely. Sort of head over heels. And when it came to Mahreeib I loved her completely.

But right now and according to Touleif she is missing.

"Where could she be?" Was my thought the moment I let my mind forsake its vacant mode and assume its role in reality. Where the reality was Mahreeib and the news that she is missing.

"Jamsheel, Jamsheel."

These were the words that echoed in my ears as worried Touleif noticed a wave of grief and pain spread over my face, and then it manifested itself via my bare body parts i.e. my hands and my feet, where one foot was completely shameless. At the moment that is.

Finally after a few moments when he had helped me drink some water and massaged my head gently. I managed to say this, " Touleif, I want to find her. It is important you know that. You know that Touleif, don't you!"

I implored, but in a way I tried to make it sound peremptory. He perceived both intentions and styles, if I may say so. He dragged a chair from the left corner of the room and sat in front of me and tried to console me. That is all he could do, console me.