Chicken Guy

"Excuse me, that seat's taken" He said, not bothering to look up.
"That's ok, I'm the one you're supposed to meet" A feminine voice replied.

Face palm.

Damn him, damn him, DAMN HIM ! He'd specifically asked his friend to stop setting him up on blind dates.. Ever since his last disastrous relationship -which he didn't want to think about- his best friend had taken it upon himself to make sure to set him up on as many dates as possible, following the timeless tradition of throwing a lot of mud at the wall and seeing what sticks. Well, girls.. not mud. It would be impolite to compare girls to mud.. The fact that he had to remind himself of that was ample evidence that he wasn't ready for this.

The first time his friend asked him if he wanted to set him up on a date, he refused point-blank. The result of that was waking up at 12 PM to a knock on his door, only to find a prostitute on his doorstep, wearing as much clothes as one would wear in a bubble bath. He explained politely -while keeping her hands off of his shirt- that no thank you, I'm not interested. She took it way too seriously. Instead of backing off, she renewed her attacks with increased vigour, even going so far as to offer him the night for free. When he still refused -far from putting on what little clothes she was wearing and leaving him alone- she was reduced to tears and he had to sit there with her for a whole hour, telling her that it was OK and that he found her attractive but still wasn't interested in her oh-so-appealing services.. which were perfectly fine, because there's nothing wrong with being a working girl, and her parents would be proud if they knew she was working to put herself through college instead of.. well, there really was no instead of.. She was already selling herself. Anyway, eventually he offered to pay her for the night if she'd leave now and go to his friend's place and give him the same show. She nodded, smiled and left him feeling worse than he'd been before she came.

Two days later he went home after work, feeling particularly drained after a very long meeting and a whole bunch of reports he'd had to write, only to find a strip club where his house used to be. His best friend was there, along with a lot of their common friends. Apparently, this was supposed to be his second cousin's bachelor party. But seeing as the second cousin was a figment of his best friend's imagination, he'd told everyone that "Mitch" (the second cousin) was passed out drunk in the bathroom and that they shouldn't worry about it and enjoy the party. He spotted his friend right away, and made his way towards him through the maze of strippers and alcohol.
"Mitch?! You couldn't choose a better name for my second cousin? All the Mitches I know are either white trash or accountants".
"Dude, you waived your right to make fun of people's names when you were named "Donald" ".
"Max, I'm not in the mood for this.. I have a big meeting tomorrow. So, using the keys I've just picked from your pocket, I'm going to your place to sleep it out. Enjoy the party.."
"Touche, Donald. I'll get you for this, though.. Mark my words. Not you, Mark, I was talking to Donald here.." And with that, he vanished back into the party.

Donald left the house and went to sleep at his friend's place.

Just one day later, his friend passed by his place for their weekly game night. Only instead of coming alone, he violated the all-time sacred rule of "no girls on game night". Of course, when they'd made that rule, the chance of them getting a girl on any night, albeit game night, was about less likely than them getting a "get out of jail free" card in real life.. So they hardly ever actually had to enforce the rule. But still, it was going against the rules. He was just about to point that out when Max not-so-subtly excused himself, grabbed his coat and hurriedly left the appartment. He was now alone with a girl whose name he didn't even know. Damn it.
Contrary to his expectations, they turned out to have a lot in common, and he ended up having a great time with her. Just when he started to think that this might lead somewhere, she got a call from her girlfriend. Yes, her girlfriend. If Max had done the slightest bit of research, he'd have realised that this girl had too much in common with him. WAY too much. She stormed out of the house shortly after she hung up, muttering a hurried apology and claiming she was having a huge fight with her better half.

Far from being discouraged after the "Lesbian Fiasco", as they came to know it, his best friend went to the trouble of setting up another date. He called Donald, asked him to meet him up for coffee, and didn't bother to show up. Instead, there was a girl there waiting for him. Unbeknownst to Max, however, it was the same girl Donald had fired not three weeks ago. Needless to say, she was less than thrilled to see him. She brutally  savaged any attempts he made at a civil conversation;
"I love meat, but I'm a chicken kinda guy, myself. What about you?" He asked, hoping she'd be mature about this.
"Of course you're a chicken guy; You're a chicken, and you're a guy. Chicken Guy. Do you have any super powers, Chicken Guy? Apart from firing people?" So much for maturity.
"Yeah, I can make a wicked omlette!" Said Donald, hoping she'd take the hint and stop being so touchy.
"It figures, Chicken Guy must have amazing omlette powers. Do eggs obey your every command? Super Heros of the world, beware.. Chicken Guy is here. He'll soft-boil your eggs to oblivion. You stand no chance. MUAHAHAHAHAHA". She actually MUAHAHAHA'ed in public. Nice. He slowly put down his fork, grabbed his coat, left enough money to pay for both their meals and left. He didn't think she noticed.

The following month of his life was jam-packed with terrible blind dates; a blonde who asked him if his Surname was "Duck" and found it so hilarious that she doubled over laughing and choked on her steak (he had to perform the Hiemlich maneuver on her while she was laughing at his name); a Ukranian girl who was pretty as hell but only knew two words of English: "Yes" and "Bathroom" (how Max had set up that date with her, he'd never know); a feminist who thought it was insulting that he tried to pull her chair for her and left before they'd even ordered their food; a Texan girl who seemed nice enough but had a very heavy southern accent and he eventually burst out laughing and she left, feeling hurt (he felt terrible about that); a woman in her late thirties who started asking him how many children he wanted to have and whether or not he was afraid of commitment before they'd ordered the main course; a dude (Max meant that as a joke); a British girl who he found very hot but who found him "quite immature" because he told her he didn't like reading the papers and "rather lacking in taste" because he didn't like tea; and a girl in her twenties who showed up with her mother (because she kept no secrets from her mother).

A couple of months passed without incident and he thought that was the end of that, until one day, Max called and arranged for an outing. He should have seen it coming when he told him the name of the place they were supposed to be going to.. One did not simply ask out his friend on a bro date at a fancy restaurant.. But he'd thought he wouldn't stoop that low.
Of course, he was wrong.

He braced himself, took a deep breath, and looked up.

To his great surprise, she was breath-taking. She turned out to be a beautiful, elegant, age-appropriate, straight, single female who spoke English and had a lot in common with him. They spent hours talking and they couldn't get enough of each other. He really did think this could be the start of something big.

It doesn't matter how many times you fail, or how many wrong people you meet.. As long as you have the right attitude and a best friend like Max, you'll eventually get there. Don't give up. No matter how many terrible relationships you go through or how many appalling people you're set up with, remember..

It only takes one time to meet the right person.

Of Rice and men

"We're gathered here today to pay our respects to Mr. Marvin Burton"

Marvin.. he'd always hated his name. It was ancient.. a name you'd expect a grandfather to be called, not a 23 year-old. His classmates had always made fun of him at school, giving him annoying nicknames like "The 100-year-old boy who lived" and asking him what it felt like to fight in the Civil War.. If it really did turn brother against brother like they said in the movies. He hated these jokes and he hated his name even more.. But at least he wouldn't have to live with it now.. It would just be inscribed on a gravestone and he would lie there, forever forgotten.

In the movies, when some happy go-lucky angel or genie came up and asked a character if they wanted to see how the world would be without them, they always omitted this part. Contrary to popular belief, although we all like to think that tears will be shed and that our close friends' lives would be turned upside down in the aftermath of the soul-wrecking agony of our deaths, it's really not something one should see. Seeing your loved ones in this much pain is something only the most sadistic of people can appreciate. He wished he a had a remote control with a "mute" button, to tune out the sound of misery in the hall. Suddenly, as if someone had yanked the speaker's plug out of the socket, the world was mute. Strange..

He looked around, searching for that one face.. but she was nowhere to be found. He was glad she didn't show up.. She'd hurt him and he never wanted to see her face again, alive or dead. At least she had the common decency to not waltz in to his funeral and "pay her respects".. Ah, never mind. There she is. Of course she came.. When there's tragedy involved, drama queens always liked to associate themselves with whoever died, got terminally ill, lost family members or had to leave the country for good. It didn't matter if they were close or not, they'd just put on a sad face and some crocodile tears and thrive off of the mourners' attention. He'd seen it happen with some of his close friends, and he couldn't stomach it;  people's attention was better directed at the deceased, not at some faker who turned up to pretend to be a damsel in distress, ultimately aiming to soak up some soothing words, put on a brave face, and get some guys' phone numbers. Of course they'd give her their phone numbers. Look at her.. She was as majestic as a tigress and twice as dangerous. Her face was strikingly white in stark contrast to her black clothes. She didn't wear any make up; her tears didn't leave smudges of eye-liner all over her face. It's not like she needed any make-up, though.. She was so pretty that he was sure if he were still alive, he'd have got a headache just looking at her.. kind of like the headache you got after consuming too much sugar.

He scanned the hall again, looking for familiar faces. There his family was, bundled together in the front decks of the hall. It wasn't right. He didn't want to see that. He quickly looked away, and immediately spotted his friends. They were also sitting in front, a respectful distance away from his family. So many had turned up.. He couldn't help but feel slightly better. He was a narcissist in life and a narcissist in death. He didn't deserve to have had all these people in his life. He'd only ever loved himself and he'd never been any real help to anyone. If only he could go back and change things..

He wasn't exactly sure why he was lingering here. He'd thought he should be up there now, getting judged for his sins.. He hadn't expected this transit. It was both a blessing and a curse, really.. He'd wanted to see their faces, but not like this. Never like this.

He forced himself to watch his family again.. It would be the last time for him to see them in a very long time. Looking at his parents, he couldn't help but feel remorse. He shouldn't be here. He should be alive, caring for them in their old age, not dead before they were even retired. His mother didn't seem awake.. and she didn't seem asleep either. She simply sat there, embedded in a sea of sad faces, existing to serve no purpose. He didn't want them to remember him like this.. He'd have loved for them to reminisce about all the fun times they'd had together, not tear themselves apart over a death they had no hand in.

His father was hugging his mother, trying to soothe her, but he looked like he needed a hug himself. Judging by his facial expression, he was still in denial. Marvin really didn't want to be there when he snapped out of it. His sister was obviously there too, looking sick and much older than her 20 years.  It was sick and wrong that he was watching this, he shouldn't remember them that way either.
 He was a terrible son. He was short-tempered and irritable, always snapping hurtful remarks and apologising for them later. A glass-half-full kind of guy would have focused on the apologising, but he was forever a pessimist. All he could see now was all the times he'd given his parents hell over sending him out to run an errand; how he'd always thrown childish tantrums over trivial things like food (He hated rice and his mother insisted on cooking it. It seemed so silly he could have laughed); how he was never there for his family when they needed him because he wanted to be there for his friends, which now that he came to think about, was a really stupid thing to do. He'd cared about them in his own selfish way, rarely bothering to go out of his way to help out, rarely caring enough to just spend some quality time at home with them without having any requests or demands. It had got to the point where his dad automatically knew he wanted money when he tried to socialize with him. He was rarely even there to talk to his sister and help her through tight spots.. He was a terrible excuse for family. He didn't care enough to offer his help. Granted, he was always too lazy to help himself, let alone others, but he still wasn't a son or a brother anyone would hope for.

He tore his eyes away from his family and looked at his friends. They didn't seem much better off. They weren't tearful because they had to keep brave faces, of course, but it seemed like most of them would lose many nights' sleep over this. Everyone was there, even people he didn't like. He couldn't help but feel touched. He'd been a very bad friend to them - God, was he ever any good to anyone? Yeah. He was good to her. But she didn't hesitate to tear his life apart and show up to his funeral to ruin his death for him as well. At least his friends ruined her advances.. It would have been a real slap to the face to see her getting along with them. He was always too busy for his friends for one reason or another, but he liked to think he pulled through when they actually needed him. Or did he? He wasn't sure. All he felt was mind-numbing regret.. that he couldn't go back in time and show these people how much their support meant for him and that he was very sorry for having been such a major pain in the groin for most of them. It was ironic that all the people he considered to be his first priority back-stabbed him in cold blood, while everyone he took for granted always wanted what was best for him.

He remembered that one time when he'd just ended things with his ex-girlfriend and his friends spent a whole week taking it in turns to take him out and keep him safe from his self-deprecating thoughts. He remembered that time when his grandmother passed away and they all showed up at the funeral (Deja-vu) and kept cracking lame jokes to make him laugh. Ironically it worked and he was soon laughing like an idiot and everyone was looking at him like he'd raped a kitten or something. He wondered how he'd feel if people started laughing at his funeral and quickly made a mental note to apologise to grandma when he saw her up there.

His whole life was summed up in this room. This room contained everyone he ever cared about or shared a laugh with.. It seemed so pathetic it was almost obscene.. that this would be his legacy. He would just be someone's past, a picture in a frame hung upon someone's bed somewhere. A forgotten memory that might or might not bring a smile to someone's face. One of the thousands of faces one meets in their lifetime.. A face they might remember with a smile or a frown, a face they might come to associate with joy or misery. He suddenly felt very insignificant. This must be what another brick in the wall feels like.. albeit the broken, self-hating, selfish brick that he was in life. The worst part about this whole thing was that he knew what he was. He didn't have the luxury of pretending he was a good person. No one would swoop in and talk him out of it. No well-meaning genie would grant him a second chance to go back and fix everything.. It wasn't a Disney movie. He was dead. He had negatively impacted everyone in his life. There was no going back. Once the grief washed away, they'd all remember him for what he really was.

Suddenly he couldn't take it any more. He wanted to leave this place, to never come back, to get the hell away and go be damned in some deep, dark hole where he couldn't hurt other people or ruin their lives. He just hoped that when his ex-girlfriend died, she'd be sent to a different deep dark hole so he wouldn't have to spend eternity with her. That would be torture.. but maybe he deserved it.

He just wanted to be gone.

And so, suddenly, he was no longer there.

His time was up.

A Hard Life

He wasn't one of those pampered babies who were born with silver spoons in their mouths. On the contrary, he was born to an average -truth be told, below average- family in a low-class district in old Cairo. His mother got married to his father when she was fifteen, owing to the fact that her own parents had no longer been able to support her and had to marry her off to the first man who came along. Moreover, his father was also married to another woman.

Born as the eleventh child for his father and the fourth child for his mother (not counting stillbirths and siblings who died in their first two years), with three more yet unborn siblings still to come, he wasn't exactly a dream come true for his parents. Toys? He didn't have any toys. It was a very unstable time in Egyptian history, and all the children of that generation didn't generally own toys due to the fragile economic state of the country under the socialist rule of Gamal Abdel Nasser. In addition, he was born in the aftermath of the 1956 tripartite aggression which destroyed the country's economy even more. With that in mind, it's easy to imagine what it was like for a little boy in such a big family.

His idea of fun was having wrestling matches with his brothers and playing football out in the alley he lived in. His mother was pregnant more often than not, and had to care for three other children simultaneously. She was never able to pay attention to him or submit to his every whim like mothers do nowadays. She had to cook three giant meals every day, tend to his baby brothers and sisters, nurse the sick to health and wash all their clothes manually on an ancient washboard. It was now some time in the late 1960's, after the 1967 war with Israel which cost Egypt the Sinai. With every available resource at his disposal directed towards funding offensives against Israel, President Gamal Abdelnasser shattered an already weak economy and most of that generation's house wives had to make do with what they had. They had to learn to sew their own clothes, make their own soap and when possible, produce their own food..Which is why she kept some chickens and rabbits on the roof; so she could breed them, slaughter them and feed them to her children. It was also a nice source of fresh eggs every 21 days. She was almost uneducated, barely able to read and maybe write. She didn't have time to help him with his homework or to even walk him home from school. He had to learn to fend for himself at a very young age.

His father had to support two wives and more children than he could remember. He owned a wafer biscuit factory, but it was a very small factory and he had a very large family. He wasn't a rich man. To support that many people, he was never home. He was always working. He didn't have time for family, and he sure as hell didn't have time to tend to a nine-year old boy and play catch or football with him. He got home very late, and then he either occasionally went to his other wife's house, or he came back home expecting dinner on the table and a bucket-full of salt-water for him to soak his tired feet in. When he went to bed, his wife stood guard  on the door to beat up any of the children who dared make loud noises or try to enter his room. If he woke up, he'd wake up in a temper and he'd beat them up or have intense fights with his wife, so she tried to avoid that by instilling in the children a crippling fear of their father, which he encouraged because he believed it made him more intimidating, and that his children would be much better raised if they had a healthy fear of their father. He didn't have any time to urge his children to study or focus on their future because he was too busy trying to keep food on the table. He wasn't a bad father..  he was just the product of a very different time, when all children were raised that way.

Having such a hard childhood helped shape him. He learned to fight for what he wanted. When your father has thirteen children other than you and sometimes has trouble remembering your name, you made sure to stand out and to let him know that you're there, and that you're worth his attention and his respect.

Along came middle school, and it brought no changes to the family, apart from the final addition to their already large family, his youngest brother. His eldest brother was getting through high school nicely, with very high grades, and so his parents gave him even less attention than usual because they were so focused on the newborn baby and their eldest son who looked like he had a bright future ahead of him. Our poor, unappreciated protagonist went to a mediocre middle school, met mediocre/low-class friends, and led an over-all mediocre life at the time. It did, however, teach him that he had to make it square. He was always getting reminded that he had to fight for what he wanted.. that there was no easy way to get anywhere. He put in his best effort at school, but was awarded no recognition from his over-worked parents.

High-school marked the introduction of hard work into his life. His father took him aside when he turned fourteen and he explained that he would no longer give him his allowance. He would now have to work in his father's factory and earn it. It was the early 70's, and Egypt was again saving for the 1973 Yom Kippur war, and the economy was as weak as ever. That said, his dad couldn't afford to pay for any extra workers for his factory and had to push his sons to work for their allowance. It was a very tough job.. Factories at the time mostly relied on manual labour, as opposed to the automatic machinery that we are used to today. That meant that he had to spend hours in front of a raging fire, lifting heavy copper and iron machinery to earn the few shillings he could later use to buy his own food. Other teenagers might have bought junk food (or whatever "junk food" they had in the 70's, anyway), but he always bought vegetables and milk because he wanted to be healthy. His siblings always made fun of him for that.

 High-school also introduced him to girls and cigarettes. He went through that phase everyone goes through, with bad influences and worse friends. What made it even worse was that his parents were again too busy to pay attention to his life. As long as he was home before his curfew, they had no reason to be suspicious, and as long as his stashed cigarettes which he sneakily smoked in the bathroom were paid for by his own earned money, they had no way of knowing anything. Which was a blessing and a curse, really, because if they knew, his father would probably beat him bloody and if they didn't, he could have wasted away his life. But thankfully, God had better plans for him and he soon grew out of that phase. But not before it cost him his dream of getting high scores on his exams that would allow him to get into the faculty of engineering, like his eldest brother. Again, he was outshone by his brother and unnoticed by his parents.

Alas, he got accepted in the faculty of commerce, Ain Shams university. He hated his studies. He wasn't remotely interested in economics or accounting. His very successful eldest brother had got a fellowship abroad in Glasgow after he graduated from the faculty of engineering.. He was making his dreams come true. He didn't hate his brother. On the contrary, his brother was his role-model. He was always supporting him, helping him, giving him the fatherly advice his own father wasn't there to give him, and urging him to forge a name for himself. So when his brother finally went to Glasgow, he was finally forced to make a stand. He decided that he would succeed, no matter what. So what if he didn't like his faculty? That didn't mean he wasn't going to succeed in spite of everyone. He was going to be the best at what he did. He was going to be somebody.

Before he knew it, he graduated and was unemployed. Throughout college, he still worked at his father's factory to earn his living and so when he graduated, he found himself dedicated full time to the back-breaking labour of the factory. His father had passed away a few years ago, and the pain of losing him was only outweighed by his iron-clad determination.. he was determined to succeed, and he knew he had to have an edge. To that end, he started taking  English language and computer classes, which was entirely unheard-of at the time; Accounting records were mostly on paper due to the fact that computers hadn't been invented yet. However, he went ahead with the two courses anyway, to improve his chances on the job market. Fate had him meet an Italian guy in the English course who worked for an Italian oil company, called ENI. He offered to get him a job, and asked him to go to the company in two days' time for an interview at 12 o'clock.

On the day of the interview, he to get some work done at the factory. It was Ramadan, he was fasting, and he had an interview at 12 o'clock. He toyed with the idea of not fasting that day, seeing as he had to be on his top form in the interview and that would be very hard after spending three long hours in a very hot vault in the factory, working the machines in front of an intense gasoline fire. However, he dismissed the notion and he decided to fast anyway, believing that God would reward him for his effort.

On his way to the interview, he started praying with all his heart. He prayed for this to be his big break. He prayed to get accepted to work for ENI, to get the hell out of that god-damned alley, to be able to support himself. Then his young mind started fantasizing.. he daydreamed about meeting a nice girl there, preferably  blonde (yes, that's what he daydreamed about).. that he could maybe start a family with her and transition away from his very hard life. He hoped and he prayed, knowing in his heart that God wouldn't let all his hard work throughout the years go to waste, and believing that his hard work and his wits can get him anywhere in life.

After working as a cashier at a Movenpick for three months, he got a call back from ENI. On his first day at work, he vowed to make a name for himself in this company. He vowed to work hard and even sleep at the office sometimes if he needed to get some work done. He vowed that he wouldn't let his future children suffer through what he did.

Thirty years of hard work later, this man was the first-ever Egyptian finance manager for ENI, with his company Audi parked in the garage and his son and daughter in a much higher social position than he was at their age. Ironically, he was also married to a beautiful blonde woman that he'd met all these years ago when he first started working for the company. His son was also epically handsome, very smart, amazingly talented, muscled, classy, hilariously funny, sharp as a knife, single (wink) and sitting on my chair writing this blog post.

He is my father, Magdy Rizk Bondok.. and I couldn't ask for a more inspiring role model. He has taught me to fight for what I want, to not settle for anything less than perfection.. to carve out a name for myself through hard work and perseverance. Well, he's trying to teach me.. It's a work in progress, really.

I'm proud of you, dad. Enjoy your victory.. You've earned it.

Old Wounds

I should probably change the name of this blog to "Diaries of a depressed fifteen-year-old girl" since all the posts I make nowadays are depressing. Hopefully I'll get back to writing the good old funny posts soon, but if not, indulge your inner depressed teenage girl.

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And that was when it hit him.. His old wounds hadn't healed and probably never would.

Let's back up a little bit and put this in context, shall we?

It was a good day. He was happy. It was one of those few occasions when he didn't feel like wallowing in self-pity or spending quality time with his laptop at home. He didn't even know why he was depressed, but he knew that he just was.. He always was. That wasn't going to stop him today, though, because he decided to go out and have fun with his friends.

He went out with a friend for a bite to eat, and they spent some good time reminiscing and talking about the good old days.. His friend was the sort of friend who earns the right to be in one's life, and is a valuable addition to it. He was one of those friends who are more like family than they are friends. His company was a welcome change from the usual depressing company of his own thoughts in the confines of his distressed brain.

Before he knew it, he was having fun and laughing and enjoying himself. The company of friends who know you more than you know yourself does that to people sometimes. Eventually, some common friends came over to hang out with them. It was a nice, typical, boring day with no complications and no reasons for his overworked brain to over-analyse anything or to put in more than the 5% of his brain power necessary to crack the odd joke or pretend to listen to someone while they drivelled on and on.

Nice little stress-free outing with friends, what could go wrong?

He noticed a new face in the group that he hadn't seen before. She was pretty. Not the usual sort of angular, bony pretty that has become so popular through media. No, the comfortable, full face that makes you feel more at home than any cat-faced supermodel. She had full lips and wavy brown hair that descended in ringlets to her shoulders. Her eyes twinkled in the dim lighting of the room, sometimes deep hazel, sometimes bright green, sometimes even yellow. Shy eyes. Mysterious eyes. Interesting eyes. She was instantly sexy to him. Her face also seemed to remind him of someone, but he couldn't quite figure out who.

She seemed like an interesting person, so he started talking to her. She was nice, one of those people that remind you of buttercup cupcakes with a rainbow frosting and puppies and unicorns. The sort of person who wouldn't even hurt one of those thrice-damned mosquitos that pick the eve of an important exam or presentation to fly right into your ears and choose annoying places such as joints to bite you in. She was a very attentive audience; she laughed at his jokes, she groaned sympathetically or smiled in all the right places, and was even doing that girly thing where she twirls her hair around playfully which he found strangely attractive.

He was hooked. He flashed back to his teens, when the mere sight of a crush would make him blush and forget his alphabet, albeit his sense of humour. It was weird, he hadn't felt like that in years. What he thought was lost to him surfaced again, and he couldn't tell why or how. Had he seen her before? He was pretty sure it was the first time he'd seen her. Why was she bringing this out in him? It made no sense. He wasn't sure exactly what he wanted with her, but he knew he wanted something. He hadn't even bothered to try to get close to any girl for a very long time, but he thought he'd give it a shot.

Time flew quickly, and he found himself getting more and more comfortable staring into the unfathomable depths of her eyes. They spoke volumes; of love lost and lessons learned. Of lean times and prosperous times. Of good experiences and bad. How she held his eye contact also told him that she wasn't one to trifle with; it was very hard to meet his gaze because his cold blue eyes usually discomforted people.. but not her. It also spoke of confidence. It's amazing how much a person's eyes can tell you about them without even meaning to.
Why were her eyes so captivating? Why were alarm bells going off in his head? The odd shine in her eyes reminded him of someone, warned him to stay away, but it was too late for that.. he was in too deep now. Despite the warnings his brain kept throwing at him, he was still in that cosy, fluffy, emotional teenage bubble she'd unkowingly put him in. He didn't stand a chance.

After what seemed like a very short time, he had to go to the bathroom. He excused himself, went to the bathroom and made a phone call on his way back.

From a long distance away, he could see her flirting with a guy. This was a girl he'd only just met, so it shouldn't really bother him that she was talking to another guy. It's not like he'd introduced her to his parents and settled for a June wedding, right?

So why did it feel so much like a stab to the heart?

Why the overreaction? She was perfectly entitled to speak to anyone she wanted. Why did he feel so betrayed? What was it about her? She was laughing. Her laugh was familiar. Everything about her was familiar.WHERE HAD HE SEEN HER BEFORE?

Then her head shifted, and the light hit her eyes and hair at a different angle. And he knew. Why had it taken him so long to realize the resemblance between her and his first girlfriend? They even had the same name. the fact that he didn't see the similarities the moment he laid eyes on the girl was a testament to his hatred of his ex-girlfriend and his determination to suppress any memories of her..

His ex-girlfriend.

His first girlfriend who cheated on him. His first girlfriend who broke his heart so long ago. His first girlfriend who he thought he'd shut out of his life, the same girlfriend who made him cynical about the concept of love. The same girlfriend who made him think he'd never find love again.

He suddenly wanted to hug and choke her.

He had to get the hell out of there. The sooner the better.

He turned around, went back outside, and started pacing in circles. He tried to close the door that the girl had unintentionally blown off its hinges. He tried to use logic, to convince himself that he was over her, to assure himself that this was just a minor lapse and that he'd be back to being the cold, calculating realist he had taught himself to be.. But it was no use.

And that was when it hit him.. His old wounds hadn't healed and probably never would.

He didn't know how he felt about this girl, but he sure as hell wasn't over his ex-girlfriend. It didn't change anything; he still wasn't going to call her, he was never going to forgive her and would probably always love her and hate her intensely and simultaneously. But now he had to admit it to himself, and admit that he had an open wound that three years of bandaging hadn't helped to heal. He had to admit that he would never love again, and if he did, he wouldn't love her like he loved his first girlfriend. He had to admit to himself that the reason why he was always depressed was that he couldn't find anyone who could fill the hole his first love had left, or live up to his insane expectations which were a direct result of his building up his first girlfriend to an undeserved, almost angel-like status.

He had to admit to himself that his self-loathing, his self-pity, his need to sabotage himself and nearly everything else that was wrong with him could be traced back to this evil witch who scarred him for life.

She didn't break something IN him..
She broke HIM.

And that was the sad truth of it all.

A friend in need

He had passed out drunk again.

Jude woke up, feeling like his intestines were being dragged out of his anus. He felt dizzy, he wanted to throw up, and he had a killer migraine.

He staggered off the couch and half-ran, half-stumbled his way to the bathroom, but he was too late. He threw up a few seconds too early, splattering vomit all over the shower curtains and the bathroom floor. But it was ok, really. The whole house was a mess, anyway. The white bathroom tiles were greying for lack of cleaning, and  a thick layer of grime had accumulated on the sink and the toilet for the same reason. The medicine cabinet was open and pills -in all shapes and sizes- were scattered all over. Spent tubes of toothpaste were all over the floor and he was out of soap. What was a bit of extra vomit? It wasn't his first time, and it wouldn't be his last.

He disgusted himself.

He opened the hot water tap, but it wasn't working. He hadn't paid his gas bills. It was the middle of December and it was freezing, but he put the stopper in the bathroom sink, filled it with cold water, and plunged his head into it. In spite of the cold, he felt instantly better. He dried his face and hair with a towel that was so dirty it was impossible to determine its original colour, and threw it on the floor to remind himself to get it laundered. He laughed inwardly. Yeah, right.

 He looked up, and his rugged, tired face stared back at him from the bathroom mirror. To say that he did not look good was an understatement. His face was more lined than he'd ever seen it; he had dark patches under his eyes; his head seemed a lot balder than he'd remembered; and his blue eyes looked duller and emptier than what he imagined a corpse's eyes would look like. "Meh." He thought. It's not like anyone cares, anyway.

He loathed himself.

He tore his face away from the bathroom mirror, and walked aimlessly out of the bathroom. Was it day or night? He had no idea. The curtains were all closed, all the clocks lied to him because he'd neglected to change their batteries, and his cell phone was buried somewhere and the only way he'd find it was if someone were to call him, but no one ever did. He'd already given up on trying to call his cell from his home phone because he'd also neglected to pay the phone bill.

He went back to the couch, where he sank into a pseudo-comfortable position. His laptop was propped up on a pillow on the floor. The two bills he bothered to pay were his electricity and internet bills. And water. You really can't live without water, he didn't have a choice.

The living room was in a slightly worse shape than his bathroom. The television was in a million pieces all over the floor. A memento of his anger two weeks ago. There were shards of glass there as well, but he couldn't remember where they came from. Discarded candy wrappers, empty scotch bottles and junk food left overs littered the floor, and there were so many empty bottles of pain killers and sleeping pills that it was hard to actually see said floor. His only coffee table was smashed (Ah, that's where the glass came from) and the baseball bat that did the damage was still on the floor next to the former coffee table, bits of glass sticking out of it. The only place he had left to sleep on was the couch. And the bedroom, of course. But he wasn't gonna go there.

He scanned the miserable excuse for a living room for any sign of a scotch bottle that still had some in it, but to no avail. He had to get up and go to the kitchen.

To call it a kitchen was a bit of an overstatement. There was a fridge, some silverware on a wooden counter, and a broken stove. He opened the fridge, which was completely empty save for a 6-pack of beer. After a brief inner conflict, he changed his mind. He needed something stronger. Now where had he left those again? "Ah". He thought.

The bedroom.

The bedroom was the only room in the house that wasn't destroyed. Far from it. In fact, it was the only room in the house that had functioning furniture. The room wasn't clean, of course. No one other than him had been in the house for months, and he'd be damned if he was caught cleaning up his own mess. No, the room was dirty, but it was very tidy. The floor was clear of choking hazards -as opposed to the rest of the house- the bed was made and the night-stand only carried a bed-side lamp and a water bottle.

He walked straight to the closet, where his dwindling supply of scotch was kept. He still had four bottles left. He'd have to restock. And soon.

With a bottle in his left hand and a bottle in his right, he was leaving the room when his eyes caught something. Of course. The letter.

Unimpeded, memories came rushing back. Memories of his long-forgotten past.

He was a successful writer with many published works, once. He was famous, he was rich, he had a lot of friends and no lack of girls. He was living the dream, right?

He was. But then he got that letter.

He was a narcissist. A very lovable narcissist, true, but a narcissist nonetheless. His obsessive need to sabotage himself, coupled with his self-hatred and his undeniable love for himself was always driving everyone he cared about away, but they always stuck with him through thick and thin. Their support never wavered.

But this was different. This was real.

His family tried to stick with him. They honestly tried to keep him out of his miserable bubble of self-pity. But what could they do? All he did was spend all day at home in his sweats and eat junk food and drink himself to oblivion. They tried to reason with him. They tried to get him professional help. But he just wouldn't talk. He was shut off to the world, wasting away in his bed until it was time to pass out and face a new day in the morning. They couldn't understand why he was doing this.

He hated them for it. And he hated himself even more.

His girlfriend had originally thought she was the only one who could save him from this. But she couldn't. No matter what she did, no matter how long she sat there crying her eyes out, begging him to open up, he'd just guzzle down another bottle and throw up or pass out. She thought he didn't care. She thought he was selfish for not sharing his burdens with her. Because he wouldn't talk to her.

She was very right. And very wrong.

His friends tried jokingly kidnapping him out of the house. He wasn't having any of it. They tried to force him.  he broke someone's arm. Whose? He couldn't recall. All that mattered was that he'd stay home. He wanted to stay alone. No one should spend time with him. No one should suffer through this. This was his problem.

No one should ever know.

His friends came back later. They tried again, and again. Even the guy whose arm he broke. What was wrong with him? Why did he deny them the privilege of being there when he needed them? Why couldn't he remember his friend's name-the one whose arm he broke? They were all faces. None of it mattered. None of it ever did.

Even his agent and his publisher came over and tried to talk him out of it. But they just wanted to leech off his brilliance. They just wanted to make more money. They didn't care. And if they did, he certainly didn't. If he didn't care about driving his family, friends, and girlfriend away, he wasn't gonna lose any sleep over those two parasites.

But he did care..

He put the bottles on the floor, picked up the letter, and read it again.

Dear Mr. Jude,

The MRI results came back. They're positive. I'm sorry.

Sincerely,
Dr. Walker.


One small letter for Jude. One giant step for cancer.

Everyone knows the five stages of grief; Denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance.

He spent the first week after receiving the letter spending time with his friends and family, trying to leave them a good memory of him. He tied up all the loose ends, made his peace with everyone, and had all his contracts fulfilled or voided.

But he didn't tell anyone. No one should ever know.

Then came the anger. Hence, his destroyed house.

Then came bargaining. But there was really nothing to bargain for. He had terminal, inoperable pancreatic cancer. In its advanced stages too, no less. But he had to try. He'd originally opted not to undergo chemotherapy, but he tried a course. It was agony. All it did was get him to lose a lot of hair. He told his doctor where he could stick his IV, and he left. What was it gonna buy him, anyway? Three more years of constant pain?

All what was left for him was depression.

He started driving everyone away. He wanted them all to hate him. He wanted them all to give up on him. He wanted to be alone. But not just for their sakes.. He wanted to feel grieved-for. He figured if he'd have to die, he'd want to go knowing that his friends and family would know that he had their best interest at heart and that he'd driven them away for a reason. Not just because he was a self-centred, selfish narcissist who hated himself too much to see people care for him and loved himself too much to see pity in their eyes.

When he came to that realization, he suddenly couldn't take it any more. If you had less than two months to live, you made the best of them. You didn't wait for someone to come save you from yourself because if you weren't willing to do that, no one else would ever be.

He took a shower, put on clean clothes, and went out to make amends. To tell those he cared about how much he loved them and how much he'd miss them.

Because sometimes you had to be selfish enough to let others be there for you. Or selfless, depends how you look at it.

A "friend in need is a friend indeed" also works the other way around.

A friend indeed sometimes just has to be selfless enough to let his friends be there for him, in his need.

A disappointment

Hi everyone, remember me? Its been a year and a half since I posted anything.. heck, since I WROTE anything. Today, on my way home from work I realized that fact, and it scared me more than I can say. I've always prided myself on my writing; always claimed it was the one thing I do best. The thought that I might be losing that one feather in my cap is not a welcome notion to me... so, in the interest of clearing the good Bondok name from such filthy accusations as having writer's block -or worse, losing my touch- and fueled by a white-hot determination to disprove this to myself, the basic outline of a short story began forming in my head.  It's a bit unorthodox, but I think it'll do the trick. As always, all similarities with any real-life characters are purely coincidental and completely unintended by the author and blah blah blah and all that crap. The events of this blog post are not in any way real events and are strictly fictional. 

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Eric slammed his bedroom door angrily.

Why did it always have to be this way? Why did mom always have to push his buttons? He'd just got home after a very long day at college, a very long, exhausting, hot, summer day, after which he expected to walk home to smiling people and a hot meal before he slipped into a relaxing shower after the day's activities and terrible weather, then fall into a long restful stupor in his comfortable bed with the air conditioning on.

Instead, he's greeted at the door with a "why are you coming home so late?" and a demand that he go out now while he's still dressed to buy her something that he couldn't care less about from the supermarket, and to make matters worse, there wasn't even any food in the house so he "might as well pick something up to eat while you're there". He responded by giving her an exasperated laugh, telling her that he was going to bed, and getting out of her face before she started whining and muttering.

He wasn't being unreasonable. It was understandable that there sometimes isn't any food in the house; he didn't live in a five-star hotel. But the nerve that she'd ask him to go out again when he hadn't even had the chance to catch his breath after climbing the short flight of stairs leading up to the apartment angered him.

He liked to think that he wasn't arrogant or pompous. In all modesty, however, he thought he had it all. People seemed to think he was good-looking, he went to a good college that offered him a bright future, he was funny, he was smart, he wasn't all that bad with a guitar, and he was in shape due to his almost obsessive compulsive need to work out on a daily basis. He was in perfect health and so was his family.

But he wasn't happy.

Sure, he was grateful. He knew how lucky he was, but he was never happy. There was always something missing. He thought it was the pain of his first girlfriend who screwed him up for life, but he knew it was just an excuse he gave himself. He was always slipping into these weird depressed moods where he'd spend days at a time at home, not wanting to talk to anyone, watching TV shows and eating junk food. None of his friends could help, no amount of girls could fill the hole, and no one in his life understood what was wrong with him.

He switched on his computer and started his daily ritual of not sleeping and wasting the hours of the night on useless pass-times such as Facebook or looking at photos on 9gag. A knock on the door. It was his dad.

His dad was asking him to talk to his sister because she was locked up in her room for some reason and she seemed to be upset. Seeing as he had a very close friendship with his sister, his dad thought he'd ask him to talk to her since Eric was closer to her than he was.

Naturally, Eric felt compelled to do so. However, at that precise moment, a friend of his called him on the phone to ask him something about some assignment they had to do, and so, 1 AM saw him chatting with a couple of friends on Skype, having completely forgotten to talk to his sister. "No matter" Thought Eric. "I'll talk to her tomorrow".

Again, he went through another useless day at college, and when it was time to go home, his friends insisted that they go out because they hadn't gone out in a very long time. So he phoned his dad and told him that he won't be making it home for dinner that night. As usual, his dad put up a token resistance, then hung up after a snapped "Fine, do whatever you want". Why did every single day he went out on have to be a big deal? He was just going to hang out with the guys for a bit, get something to eat, and drive home by 11 PM. It's not like he did anything useful when he was home, anyway.

It was a good night. He went bowling with the guys, had a massive steak for dinner, then went for some Call Of Duty at a friend's place. Perfect guy's night out. They had a few good laughs and then he drove home, arriving at about 12 PM, only to find out that his parents aren't home and that his sister was asleep. Damn it! He'd forgotten to talk to his sister again. He'd have to get right on that as soon as possible. And so he went to bed once more.

Next day, he woke up in a really bad mood. The water heater wasn't working for some reason, so he had to shiver his way through a very cold shower, his clothes were either dirty or too crumpled up to wear without being ironed- which he didn't have the time for- and there was still no food in the house. He'd been trying to be a nicer person, so he let all that stuff slide and tried not to whine to his parents. To do that, he got out of the house as soon as he could before he lost his composure.

Flash forward through another day at college, where he received a couple of bad grades that put him in an even worse mood. This time, he got home early because he decided to skip his last class and take an early bus home so he could try out a new game he downloaded. Mom had made roast beef for dinner, which she very much knew he hated. After a brief tantrum and a slammed door, he resolved to just order pizza and
stream any funny TV show online to try to get himself out of this dark mood. However, the internet was down. It was like the whole world was ganging up on him.

He walked out of the room and found his dad outside having a wrestling match with the fridge, which had apparently broken down again. He chatted with his dad for a bit, then the doorbell rang and it was pizza time. Ten minutes later, he'd finished eating and was on his way back to his room when he remembered his sister. He knocked on her door and went in.

The room was a complete mess, she'd been lying in bed for almost two days now. It was obvious she'd been crying. He sat down next to her, and asked her what was wrong. She said she'd been arranging this outing with her friends for days but that she couldn't go. Dad had to work and he didn't have time to drop her off, and she wasn't going to run the thirty miles to go see them. Eric was dumbfounded.

"You mean to tell me that you've been holed up in here for three days straight, crying your eyes out, because there's no one to drop you off? Why didn't you ask me?"

That was the moment that changed everything.

She looked him in the eyes and said: "You're never there, Eric. And if you are, you never listen. You're always too busy for me".

BAM. And there it was. Rock-Bottom.

Things started to get clearer. He was seeing things from a different perspective.

His whole life was about HIM. Him, him, him. Him, and no one else. He wanted to come in late and have a hot shower and his favourite food, never mind that his mom was sick and lonely and wanted him to spend time with her. It's not like he didn't care, he just didn't know.. Which was somehow a bigger problem. He didn't ask. All he saw was that there was no food and that she'd told him off for being late.. He didn't think to ask if she was alright.

He didn't think to consider that the reason why his dad wanted him home early a few days back was that he needed his car so he could drop his mom off at the clinic.

He didn't think that maybe there wasn't any food in the house because his mom was too sick to indulge his every whim and cook his favourite food. And if she cooked a kind of food that he didn't like he'd stomp his feet and throw a childish tantrum and storm off to his room, not considering the fact that she'd spent hours preparing said meal after coming back from a very long day at work.

He didn't think that maybe his clothes weren't laundered or freshly ironed because his mom, the lady of the house, was in no fit state to see to it that these things are taken care of, and he wasn't nearly mature enough to take care of them himself because he was an overgrown baby.

He didn't think that maybe the house was in this extreme state of disrepair because his dad's recent promotion made it impossible for him to get home before 8 PM, at which time he'd either dutifully drop his sister off wherever she wanted to go, or go to sleep to barely be able to do it all again the following day.

He didn't think that maybe the best way to help his dad and show his support WASN'T standing on the kitchen's doorstep, casually chatting with him instead of getting his hands a bit dirty to help his old man out.

He didn't think that maybe his sister had shifted her entire social life to synchronize with her dad's schedule because he was the only one who cared enough to drop her off because Eric was always away or when he was there, he'd sometimes pretend he was busy or he'd drop her off reluctantly after throwing a long tantrum about it.

He didn't think that every bad grade he got in college was another blow to his hard-working parents, who worked all day every day to secure his tuition fees at a university that he didn't even care enough to study for because he was as irresponsible as can be.

He didn't think that, despite everything he thought he had, despite the trivialities such as his looks or his form or his brains or his sense of humour, he lacked the compassion and the selflessness to just ask how his family was and maybe offer his help when it was needed. He didn't think that maybe that was the depressing black hole in his being that no amount of outside contact would fill. What he needed was INSIDE contact. He realized he didn't really know his family because he was too busy either on his computer, bonding with friends or occasionally studying on the eve of his exams in order to barely pass.

He was constantly letting everyone he cared about down. Even if he did it unknowingly, the end result was the same:

He was a failure.
A narcissist.

A DISAPPOINTMENT.