Once knew a girl who would never cling, always she would seat calmily, her eyes ever-wandering yet lips never questioning. Her demeanor never shallow, she would cower in solitude leaving conversations destitute. Her goals were never swallowed up in the band-wagon’s shadow but would give a glimpse of humor when complexities arose. Her time was precious, her mannerism hallowed yet nothing seemed perfectly right with this funny fellow . The back seat in class was always attended by her religiously, to catch every philosophical order although the latter seemed to prove better as logic severed any unanswered rhema. 

She wore intelligence on her sleeves, her persistence strong in skin and in the futility of the fellow kin in making her do their will. As relaxed as a humming bee, she would peck through insecurities not necessarily giving antidoctes but prescribing detectable maladies.

This lady I’d often see, alone even in the midst of noisy friends; lost in her quizzical thoughts of things many fail to check. A genius mind, a child-like heart; a personality of quivering interest locked up in an attitude of a feminist mind.

In this lady I’d often sense, a certainty of the present, a non-chalance for the past and bubbling portfolios of the possible future. She was never all-gleeful neither did she drink up the contents of sorrow’s cup. The faults in her spheres were evident due to her ignorant or rather divergent views on how to care. There were no tutorials as to keeping so she reigned in all intuition of how to skillfully play big.

This lady I’d often watch from a scene, never try to get entangled within until she took from me that which was untouchable. The world seemed to stop as she walked towards me, I could hear hear silence as loud as a resounding gun when she stopped by me.

This lady, to whom I owed no thoughts slipped a paper through my hand and left me staring after her in shock. The force was with me that day as the lecturer was absent in state. Anticipation clenched my guts in suspense as I opened the paper to feed my curiosity.

Sometimes , I sit in the bench and wonder on the outcome of my funny fellow, the words still imprinted in my mind. I remain as abashed by the action now as of then. I sought the reason for the maligned plot. To me, I was the lucky one yet she seemed always chosen having bought a right slot at the king’s table. Years turn and I hold my little one, teaching him about crossroads until I hear a voice deviant and familiar in tune…….. I look up to see my funny fellow smiling with a mischevious glint in her eyes while disbelief washes away all doubts. I keep smiling until the doctor says…
“Mr. Aliso stop zoning out, I hope you have been taking your pills. You should be careful about this disease, I wouldn’t have you telling people about unreal persons or things. I stare back at him suddenly remembering the doctor’s office but also wondering if the lady was all a fragment of my funny fantasy.

On other days, the dryness of the land would reach out to the body’s interior and cause the parched tongue to hang up mouth’s roof. Until water came, whether it was by the oasis, or the precious scatterings of rain. And the rains were only an occasional phenomenon, even in the middle of the year.
The air was arid on that day too, when Amal set out with his donkey for Bayt Ansar, that far-flung town which seemed to have much more of everything than Maqaas ever possessed. It was one of those things which had bothered him into getting unto desert roads. The drought was particularly bad this year; only the oldest of Maqaas’ men could recall anything like it. The trail of the traveler’s route was decorated by numerous carcasses, obscene and haunting as could be. The beasts of burden had many times failed to bear thirst much more. They had fallen, along with many other lesser creatures.
The march of death was now upon the gates of man himself.
Sandstorms cut short Amal’s advance many times. The scourge of the heat was perennial and ubiquitous; and the waves of dryness was trouble to skin and soul. It seared, it depressed, it weakened. Though there were stopovers at makeshift shelters and little lonely villages, those nights were by no means comfortable. The rest was intermingled with thoughts of coming sights of monotony, of emptiness, and of hopeless horizons seemingly without end.
On this night, Amal stopped over at a tiny village. He had been on his quest for three days, had conquered more than half the swath of territory he needed to overcome to get to that priced reward. But he was feeling tired and even a little sick. There was little to fall back on, except an ancient bed in a poorly lit room graciously offered him by an old friend who lived there. His frame was ragged, his face lined with the many signs of many worries, all connected to the quest, and to home.
He was beginning to think about retreat.
The harshness of Maqaas had not been in the weather alone. It was everywhere, and in everything. The ringing calls from the top of domed constructs, their minarets shining, announcing along with loudspeakers that this land was Lorded over by compulsion. The passion, the fierceness in the voice of he who roared to the faithful, who looked in the corners to see that the law was kept, not broken. The chants of children narrating the tale of enforced devotion, in the nearest shade, instructed by a whip-wielding master many times older than their mothers. And mothers in silent space, behind the black veil, seeing the world via distorted vision. The threat of death, which the violent zealots roaming the streets were all too willing to execute. The blood of the disobedient was that which quenched the thirst of the earth.
Thirst. Maqaas had so much ‘piousness’, but left much to desire. It held people bound, it promised to make them straight. But stiffness to mercy and a firing up of vain passions was the end result. For there were hidden parlours and corners of open secret in which the very men who appeared saintly by day would seek to quench their thirst by night.
Amal shook his head. The way back was long, and the way forward was a hard thing. But he was also dying of thirst. He was dying to live. He could go back to Maqaas, where he could live the schizoid life and get sunk by the misery and guilt of personal contradiction; or he could move forward and somehow get to Bayt Ansar, where the faithful were also free, and where thirst was unheard of. He retired for the night, overwhelmed by the great confusion.
But by morning, Amal had made up his mind. It had drizzled a bit while he was asleep, and the weather now was a bit clement.
“If this is what its like being this close to Bayt Ansar, I wonder what it’ll be like over there”.
He went into the open with his friend, thanked him for his hospitality, and bade him goodbye. Then he rode into the distance, more determined than he had been before.

A 24-year old boy looking out through a train’s window shouted, “Dad, look, the trees are going behind; they are moving very fast” his Dad simply stared at him with so much joy and smiled! A young couple seated nearby looked at the 24-year old and thought to themselves, he’s so grown up but so childish, he must have a mental disorder for his father not to be bothered.
Suddenly the young man exclaimed again; “Dad, look, the clouds are running with us” the couple could not hold the thought any longer and suggested to the old man, “why don’t you take your son to a good doctor may be a psychiatrist?”
The old man smiled and said “I just did. We are just coming from a doctor but not a psychiatrist; we are just coming from the hospital. My son was blind from birth. He just got his sight today for the very first time, his behavior may seem stupid to you, but it’s more than a miracle to me.” The young couple just sat down there, lost for words with a mixture of tears and shame in their eyes.

Everybody on earth has a story; don’t judge people so fast or jump into conclusion about their private affairs; you don’t know where they are coming from or what they have to deal with. The truth behind their story might surprise you. Take it easy with others, even if you have a perfect life.