6:30 - She Never Came - by Farouq Umar

I picked up the phone one night and dialed Zainab’s number with fidgety fingers, clumsy and unsure, sweat trickling down my forehead. It was ringing; I could hear her caller tune playing — Utopia by Feezey, which I recalled was her favorite song. It rang and rang for a while until I heard that voice I so detested announce: “The number you dialed is busy.” She was on another call, but with whom? Was it him? I was sure it was, but what if it wasn’t? It could have been her mother, a sibling, or perhaps a friend. I waited for ten minutes before calling her again. Her line was still busy. Who could she be talking to for ten minutes? I waited yet another ten minutes, and still she was on another call. Only near an hour later did she at last dial me back. “Hello,” I quivered, my voice softly enraged. “We need to talk.” I continued immediately, affording her no chance to speak. “_Ko sallama babu?_ You did not even say hi,” her voice spoke through the phone, nonchalant. “I’m afraid there’s no time to spare for pleasantries. I need to speak to you. It’s rather serious.” “Alright, what is it?” “Not on the phone,” I said. “It’s something that can only be discussed in person.” “O…kay,” I could smell the hesitation in her voice. “When can I see you? Will tomorrow be fine?” I asked. “No. I’ll be busy tomorrow.” “When will you have time?” “Let me see…” A long pause. She was clearly scanning her mind, hoping to find an excuse. “Friday evening,” she said at last. “I’ll be free then.” I was swept by a feeling of relief. Come Friday, my nerves stiffened into stony roots running through my body. We agreed to meet at the triangle park at 5:00 PM, yet there I was waiting when the clock still showed 4:30 PM. I had tried to compel myself to refrain from arriving early, but my thought process was shrouded in an endless mist of ‘what ifs.’ What if she gets here before me? What if I get there late? What if she’s already there and takes offense at my lack of punctuality? And that was how I ended up arriving thirty minutes early — simply because I feared even the slightest risk of her displeasure. I found a bench and sat there waiting. I was heavily perfumed and certainly overdressed in my long white _shaddah_ and fine, well-starched _hula_ that sparkled from recent washing. I looked at my watch some time later. 5:00 PM said the time. She’d be here anytime now. I fixed my posture and held it there to give myself the nonchalant ‘cool’ look, hoping so desperately that she would notice how ‘cool’ I looked. 5:10 PM, and she was nowhere to be seen. My heart began to race. Why isn’t she here? What was taking her so long? Then my inner voice retrieved the microphone, blasting false assurances and excuses into my intangible ears for her lateness. “There must be a good reason,” the liar told me. Yet the voice that spoke was mine. I was the liar. 5:30 PM, and the park had begun to empty. Lovers, friends, and families had begun to depart, to my delight, I must admit. The smiles, the laughter, and the entwining of fingers and romance had become unbearable and frustrating to watch. It was almost as though they were all in cahoots, staging the whole thing as a mockery to me. I knew that was not true, yet that knowledge did little to quell my spite. 5:50 PM — she was yet to appear. A pool began to form in my eyes, but I did not allow it to drop. I will not shed tears, I promised myself. Even if she does not come, I will not cry for her absence. The same songs played over and over again through my earpiece in a miserable loop throughout my wait. I could no longer maintain my sitting posture, so I stood up, paced back and forth restlessly over the lush green carpet grass and the exotic flowers that gave me no peace as they were supposed to. I walked back to the bench and sat down again. NF was rapping away through the earpiece — the lyrics to Let Me Down seemed to enrage me further. “I’ve had enough,” I said at last, fed up. I took to my feet, dusted my squeezed _shaddah_ for fallen leaves, turned the music to the highest volume, and began to walk away. I stepped outside the waist-high gate of the park as another foolish couple were about to walk in, hand-in-hand. The man in a hooded _thawb_ made way for me to pass and then had the audacity to say: “_Salam Alaikum._” The sight of them caused a deep, inexplicable spite within me. Why were they happy, and I was not? I turned one last time with spiteful eyes at the park and the happy “human mosquitoes” within it. I looked to where I had been seated, and out of nowhere, there was a girl there, seated, waiting it seemed. She came. I walked back with hurried steps through the colorful field of fragrant flowers toward the bench, trying my very hardest to subdue the visible joy that threatened to curve my lips upwards. I paused the music, cutting off NF in his depressing ballad. I am a happy man, I thought, and didn’t need a depressed man rambling on about the miseries of his life. I got closer, donning a mask of nonchalant indifference. Until I came before the bench and then… disappointment. It wasn’t Zainab. The girl looked at me in confusion, and I had no choice but to act natural and walk away. I found another bench and took a seat, finally allowing the disappointment to settle in. I rested my back on the bench, my arms spread apart over it, my head toward the sky — and it was me and NF again in our depressed little circle. We understand each other, he and I, for we are alike; grief-stricken and miserable. At least, I thought, NF says there are millions of others just like me. Were there? I doubted. If that were so, that there were millions of others like me, then I was justified in my faith in the safety of my confinement. If millions out there were left feeling dejected, losing all self-worth because they chose to chase the acceptance and affection of others, then that did not speak well of the world. That was not the sort of world I wished to live in, yet I still wished to live. My grief metamorphosed into self-loathing, then into spite. Spite toward the happiness around me, of which I had no share; spite toward the world at large for abandoning me in my misery; and most of all, spite toward her! She was to be blamed, I thought. She was the villain, and her crime was not loving me. “I hate her,” I decided with verbal affirmation, and I would let her know next time we met. I wanted to leave, but I could not bring myself to rise from the bench. 6:00 PM, the clouds had gone dark and heavy and began to weep, thunder rumbling as lightning flashed. A light drizzle sent people scuttling away like fleeing felines. Umbrellas were unfurled, yet there I sat, motionless. Mentally drained. I could not rouse myself to lift my feet off the ground. No one listens to me, not even my limbs. Was there ever anything as loathsome as a disobedient self? I stared at the clouds. NF was rapping about how he was in a better place after thirty years. He has left me too, I thought. The drizzle matured into a downpour as the heavens burst with grief. I watched people run for cover, yet there I sat — unwanted, unloved… miserable. If only my family had seen me in such a pitiful state, how ungrateful I was to them. 6:30 PM, my clothes were drenched and my soul soaked with sorrow. The sun had begun to wave the day goodbye as it came time for it to retire and for the moon to begin its shift. At last, I gained agency over my limbs and began to walk home. I took out my phone, which had been in my trouser’s right pocket. 6:36 PM, my home screen told me: [Thank Apple for water resistance]. The _Adhan_ blasted from many _Masaajid_ all over. I stopped at one masjid, made _wudhu,_ and prayed absent-mindedly, barely remembering what surahs the _imam_ had recited. By the time I got home, the sky had faded to black and was dotted with a million twinkling stars. I made my way to my room, changed out of my soggy clothes, and fell into the warm embrace of my beloved bed. I was hungry yet without an appetite, so I decided to skip dinner entirely.

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