Today was when I first noticed it. It was the distinct feeling that someone had noticed me. She was a young girl who lived in the apartment complex. She had the clumsy appeal that young teenagers have when they are trying to assume self-confidence by putting on the appearance of being an adult. She was not overly attractive, but she was not ugly by any means. In fact it was a slight defect that actually granted her appeal. It was something about her eyes… no, actually it was one of her eyelids that fell limp and did not quite open as high as the other. Her skin was a medium chocolate brown and she was wearing black denim.
She was too young to be revealing and yet, one could sense that she would grow up to be beautiful. Tragically, I wondered if she had already sold herself short and whether she could imagine herself riding off with her perfect prince one day, or if instead she would allow some local hoodlum to steal her innocence with little more to offer than his native confidence.
I do not know what it was in my demeanor that had attracted her to me. But it seemed unnatural that she would wait so long at the door to hold it for me so that I could enter without having to fidget around with my key and the security lock. Her younger companion had entered around the time that I pulled up. But she must have saw my car and waited. She recognized me now after about six months of going in and out that door. I did not fit in here. I am not the right color and I have lived in better places, this was just but a hotel stay to me in the greater scheme of life. I knew my checkout date when I checked in, unlike the others who regard this as home. But I always tried to be polite and cordial, smiling when I met people and saying thank you to those who granted common courtesies of door holding and the like.
She may have been doing nothing more than holding the door as well though the exaggerated wait betrayed her and set the wheels of my imagination in motion. As I passed her and offered my thanks she shyly glanced at me but her drooping eyelid made her appear to look away. It was not until the moment had passed that I realized that there had been a signal. But an unintended signal it was. She was a young girl, in this society, a mere child. And I, a displaced and lonely family man, missing my own children and struggling with a mixture of emotions regarding my wife. They were in another state. She did not relocate with me when I took this job. I was undergoing a painful summer of transition and I needed her. But she was doing some transitioning of her own. I give her that benefit of the doubt so that my heart may remain at peace with her for leaving me alone at such a time.
So I proceeded down the hall to my empty apartment. Books and articles scattered the floor. I entered and changed clothes. I offered the afternoon prayer and then made popcorn and watched a movie. Afterwards I felt melancholy. There were papers to grade and I had no desire to check them. I had been doing research for my own classes, and I had no desire to do that either. Instead my demons awaited me, planning to sabotage my productivity and seduce me toward my hollow vices. Eventually, I would fall to sleep having accomplished nothing only to wake the next day to begin again.
It was the worst year of my life. If I had not been reading a bunch of books about being positive, I dare not think of the dark consequences. I will not intervene on God’s behalf when it comes to life and death, but I could quite possibly reduce myself to a rather meager and worthless existence – but existence nonetheless.
I began drifting off as my knees found their way to a half-inflated air mattress on the floor of my bedroom. I rolled over onto my back and hung my left arm over my head. As my eyelids closed I saw her there waiting in the doorway of my dreams, her arm extending the door until I could catch up with her. And I said “thank you princess” which melted her effort to look casual and elicited a wide but shy smile. She said, “I am no princess”, as she withdrew to the side and turned her back to walk up the stairs. “Just wait”, I said. “Someday your prince will come, and you will see…” I could hear the muted horn of Miles Davis somewhere in the building as she walked on upwards, only glancing back slightly.
Remembering something, I said, “Wait”. And I reached into my pocket to withdraw a small book entitled The Little Prince. “Read this… I know it looks like a kid’s book. But if you look deeper, there is meaning.” She came back down the stairs a few steps now eyeing me with suspicion. She looked at the book, its paperback cover blue and white with a little yellow guy standing under the title. The author’s name was French making it unpronounceable to the average American. She looked back at me and wrinkled her brow, but took the book, saying “ok”. She turned and was gone.
I did not see her again for a few days. On an overcast afternoon she appeared again in the canvass of my life. I was trying to carry too much as is my custom. No amount of pain and discomfort can compare to the irritation of having to make a second trip between the car and the door. So there I was with my satchel, still overflowing with papers, and my coffee cup, lunch box, six bags of groceries including eggs that were not to be broken, a gallon of milk and a carton of juice, and my mail tucked under my arm while I searched with my right hand for the keys in my left pocket so I could unlock and open the door. Somehow, (though I cannot fathom it), I dropped something. It was a piece of mail. Alas, it was too late for me to bend down to get it. The time limit on the delicate balance of goods I was bearing was nearing expiration. And as gravity tugged away at my juggling act, I opened the door and deposited everything inside.
I turned around to get whatever it was that I had dropped and I found her there with the item in hand. It was not essential, but somehow she was. I did not understand how it came about, but she had grown to become an informal addition to my life. She was not related, and thus, I could not justify her presence in shari’ah, but nonetheless she was still there. She asked me if I needed help and even though I knew the right answer, the truthful one slipped from my lips as I said "yes." She entered and looked rather bewildered at my lack of furniture and the books strewn around on the carpet. I had a folding chair for my computer and another that was out for no particular reason. My wife had gotten it out when she had visited once. I offered her the chair and she sat down. She sat there in her jeans, with her legs apart leaning forward on her arms with her hands pressed down on the chair in the open space in the middle of the seat. I put away my things in the kitchen while she looked on.
“Did you read the book?” I asked.
She said “yes”.
“What did you think?” I said.
She said, “You were right. It did have meaning”.
Though she was not generous with her words, I took her on as a kind of student. She would come around and I would recommend other books to her. Sometimes she would bring her homework and do it there in my apartment. I let her use my computer for the Internet and helped her learn how to find information. She did not talk a whole lot, so I did not know how much she really understood of what she read. A teacher never really knows this anyway. He likes to trick himself into thinking that he can objectively quantify the amount of knowledge or academic progress a student is making. But most students are just playing the game, getting the points, and moving on. In her case, there was no game, no points, and she always came back, day after day, seeking more.
As for me, I was happy to give and I looked forward to her presence. She was a secret though that I had not revealed to the world. And of what matter is the world in one’s dreams? At some point I would wake up, and she would be gone. The school year was coming to a close and I would be leaving, heading back to my family and trying to determine what would constitute normalcy. But before I opened my eyes I recall how she became my friend. How she learned from me and laughed at my jokes and how I yearned to see her each day. How she would sit with me next to the wall to watch some show. And how she would lean in to me when she was tired and I would let my arm rest along her arm. I could smell her hair when her forehead was near my lips and her cheek was resting on my chest. We would dose off to sleep there, I, and my apprentice.
On the day I left, we loaded my car. She sat next to me as we drove off toward the next destination in the travel of life. She was a part of me now and would not let me leave without her. And sometimes I still see her when I sleep though she is somewhere embedded in the vast subconscious.
So I awoke the next morning and found my clock there waiting, telling me to catch up with a day that had already begun. And I got dressed, and prayed, and went back to work as scheduled.
Last update : 21-03-2003 01:34
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