Monday, December 12, 2005

Procrastinating: .. Remember the age of innocence?

Neither do I..

First day of high school in Saudi, I walked in nervously and took the first seat in sight. As I cursed my fortune and blared my disc-man to drown everyone out, he tapped me on the shoulder and smugly asked if I was listening to 'N Sync, I looked at him with disgust and told him to scram.. he obnoxiously grabbed my disc-man, popped it open, and saw my Metallica CD ... we were friends ever since.

Throughout the years our friendship was implicit; never in need of a fancy declaration. It was unconditional, undoubted ... childishly simple yet intensely loyal. He never made any promises for his actions spoke louder.. an imposing subtle figure, always there with his infectious spirit and admirable sense of righteousness. No one will ever measure up.

One year he forgot my birthday, so he grabbed a gray shirt from his closet on his way out and spray painted it with "Happy Birthday" and "M. is my HERO". It reeked and is the most hideous thing I've ever seen.. I still wear it, I couldn't love it more.

As fate would have it, we graduated and ended up on opposite ends of the earth. I saw him 2 years later, and he was a different person. All he spoke of was girls, his job as a bartender, and his constant partying...

I missed the old M., the one that would call at 2am, wake my whole household up, to ask if we had Literature homework. The M. that blocked a friend's father hand when he tried to slap her. The one that would take over the dance floor with his old school breakdancing and befriend anyone and everyone at every party we went to. The M. that I caught in the school's nurse's room examining a pair of tweezers and contemplating removing his uni-brow. The one that laughed so hard he would snort uncontrollably.

As we sat in my yard last summer, he lit up a cigarette without asking..

-- "what happened to us L."
- "you changed ..."
--"what about you? what happened to the crazy girl I knew"
-"Life happened.. I had to grow up. What happened to the nice guy I knew?"
--"Nice never got me anywhere.. guess we both grew up"

He flicked his cigarette over on my mother's treasured flower bed, and as I watched one of her beloved lilies start to burn, he walked over .. and stomped it out.

| 0 CoMmEnTs| -- Posted by [[ On My Own ]]--|Permanent Link|

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