Side Story(1): Part 3/5

 

 

 

Repentance, Forgiveness, Acceptance

 

Part 3 /5

 

 

 

 

 

Her name was the sun and her lips were thinly coated by the autumn sunlight…

 

But away from my sight, the soiled patches of anguish had already stifled the crust of her heart, muting its corners from crying for salvation.  

 

 

--- --- ---

 

 

I adjusted my pair of glasses as I stole glances at her pleasant curved structure keeping up with my nervous footsteps.

 

 Walking to the school gates with a beautiful person for the first time is mentally stressful and sometimes you wouldn't know how to start a conversation, creating a negatively conscious atmosphere.

 

However, in our story…that awkward silence should not have been fractured.

 

I briefly peeked at the wristwatch under my brown sweater sleeve.

 

"Who's waiting for you?" she asked.

 

"Hm?"

 

"Who's waiting for you….at home?"

 

"Oh, it's just Mayada; my foster mother."

 

"Heh?" the frames of her green eyes curved in a curious smile, and her hands crossed behind her back as she leisurely walked forward, "What is she like?"

 

"She's heavy and loud and she loves to try out whatever recipes she finds in her chunky cook book."

 

That was my 'taken for granted' description of her.

 

"Mayada, I can't concentrate…" I turned the page of the book in my hands with a sigh, failing to ignore her constant humming and busy clatter from the kitchen behind the sofa, " You're so heavy and loud and you pointlessly adore your little green-painted kitchen."

 

But she wouldn't get angry or anything, I could tell from the nonstop humming as her footsteps neared me. Mayada always taught me to be honest to myself and to other people, but this was what we called our harmlessly blunt debate.

 

"And you, Sir Farfoor," she replied as she put down a platter on the small table before me, "are not as smart as you claim to be."

 

"I am smart." I half-whined, squinting my eyes behind the curtain of pages raised in my hands,

 

"If you were, you wouldn't have underappreciated my kitchen, or the gift of cooking." Her voice was not lecturing, it mildly suggested something pleasant. I lowered the book in my hands to take a look at the platter; a neat stack of biscuits dressed in cream and layers of pineapple slices.

 

Pineapples. The most extraordinarily beautiful fruit I've ever seen. I did not just love it. I was in love with it. This took me back to the time when Uncle Waleed took us out for lunch at his cousin's diner and I ordered a pineapple drink, naturally getting elevated on the excessive sugar five minutes later, blabbering words half-consciously as the aftermath. If pineapples were a woman, I told Uncle and Mayada -who both almost suffocated from laughing- I  would ask her out on a date, make her fall in love with me, and eventually marry her.

 

Everything about that fruit fascinated me; the tropical, palatable flavor, the pale yellow shade, and the appetizing trimly sliced rings in dessert, on the edge of a glass, or plainly spread in a bowl of fruit.

 

The blond chuckled softly at my description of Mayada, "She seems fun to be around." The color of her cropped hair reminded me of the pineapples' pale yellow, hers stroked with an exceptional hint of silver. This was partially the reason of my physical attraction to her.

 

"Well, sometimes." I lightly shrugged.

 

"My mother barely knew how to cook, and I guess I inherited that."

 

"Mayada cooks almost anything." I said in an almost bothered tone, "I try to avoid the weird side-dishes, but I can never resist the omelets she makes for breakfast."

 

"Ah, that's interesting." Shams pursed her half-smiling lips and rolled her eyes up, hesitating before talking again, "I'd like to taste her omelets sometime."

 

Not only did she imply a visit to my house but also almost sounded as if she had no problems with staying the night there.

 

Surprisingly, I did not mind the sudden, suggestive invasion of personal space; I wouldn't after seeing the pretty curved frames of green in a half-smile as we talked.

 

Did her heart squeeze and disperse into a strange loud mess like mine did?

 

I wanted to know more about her. Unfortunately…there was one single detached petal of obscurity that broke the blooming friendship into pieces.

 

"Do you like reading?" I asked.

 

"Occasionally…"

 

"What do you read about?"

 

"Nothing specific, really, any book with a pretty large cover and interesting photos or illustration pulls my attention."

 

"Huh?" I smirked in partially disappointed skepticism, feeling more mature than she is, "You're fourteen years old and you do that still?"

 

"Tending flowers in that backyard is much more fun than reading." She motioned the Mrs. Taleeda's orchard behind.

 

"Don't you have a garden at home?"

 

"I do, but it's as good as dead to me."

 

"How come?"

 

"My father always complains about being allergic to a lot of things, so I promised to keep my strange hobbies away from the house."

 

Strange?

 

"What kinds of hobbies?"

 

This was a turning point for the conversation, but it wasn't the thread that ruined everything.

 

"Well… do you have animals?" the curve lifting the corners of her lips was different this time, because her eyes were not smiling.

 

"I did get a turtle once, but it died a week later."

 

"A turtle?" she said in mild excitement, "If I had known you before, I would have asked you to bring me its body instead of burying it."

 

"Ah, you're one of those people that dissect dead animals?"

 

"Well, not just when they're dead, when they're sick. When I'm curious about their insides…when I get bored with them." She spoke so casually about it and I turned to look at her, the same incomplete smile still on her lips. My stomach slightly twitched.

 

"You're not serious." I told her in a lower voice.

 

"I am." The smile grew wider, but her eyes remained cold green, "All animals are wonderful in each of their own ways. Don't you think?"

 

I didn't understand -no- maybe a part of me did, but I did not like this side of her. The words coming out of her tender lips did not match the sweet photograph I kept of her this morning. She was naturally a negative person, but what she said just now sounded unfamiliarly dark, even when it made sense.

 

I opened my mouth to speak, "Wh--"

 

"Animals don't get sick of you or let you down like most humans do, even when you can be a lousy companion sometimes." I said nothing to that, my feet coming to a stop as I turned to look forward where the main gates stood on the left of the building we had just walked past, "I'm glad we can talk like that."

 

"Hm?"

 

"I feel comfortable talking to you."

 

"Well, you're a pretty girl." I don't know how I blurted this out, but I just did, avoiding her eyes as I slightly blushed, "Why don't you have any friends?"

 

"You really think I'm pretty?" she tilted her head, eyeing me with the corner of her green.

 

Can anyone really be oblivious of their own beauty?

 

"Yes."

 

"Well," she sighed, "Almost everyone around me thinks I'm a strange person. Weak. Unwanted."

 

"Why do they think you're unwanted?"

 

"The same reason why they think you're unwanted." what she had just said wasn't as hurtful as much as actually listening to it was. Even when you know you're an outcast, you still prefer not to talk about it, "I used to believe that being eternally connected to the person you love the most is the only bless people need. But I was wrong, just six years after their marriage my mother became really evil and hurt many people. One day, I came back home and I realized my father had already killed her."

 

Yet another disturbing mental flash to envision, with a sweet looking child in the centre of the image; It was relatively similar to my background, yet twice as tragic.

 

Our community of Shawada scattered in a range of colors beyond the average human measurements. But only two bloodlines possessed the gift of guidance.

 

The bloodlines of White and Black Guardians, born to serve and protect humanity through arts of magic; White Guardians encouraged people to live in harmony closer to values of goodness; respect, generosity, forgiveness…

 

The disrupted bloodline of Black Guardians who warned people about falling into poverties and discouraged injustice; some of them were even licensed to discipline offenders. But I was told being an avenger and a janitor, cleaning up the scum after every human-caused disaster was a very thorny heritage that came with a tremendous grip of power, even wider than the limit of power the white guardians possessed. And many black guardians would lose sight of common sense at an early age, blinded by the power that grew with every human soul penalized. Was Shams' mother one of those?

 

"Why did your mother become evil?"

 

"I don't know." She said still maintaining a composed tone even when scanning through a chaos of painful memories, "But I'm sure you know this fact."

 

"What fact?"

 

"That Nature had given us guardians what plain, flawed humans do not have." A sad shade of green glanced at me from the corner of her eyes and back to stare at the half curled hand she lifted up, "but in return, we are not capable of loving one another."

 

"That's not true." I noisily objected, "I love my family and I have absolutely no problem with loving them."

 

"It's our curse, Nader."

 

"Why are you saying this?"

 

If it was just about being negative, I would have let it pass, but her eyes had become painfully cold. And I felt the urge of turning away from them. But I would not runaway that easily. I was not weak, I thought.

 

Fact…? Our curse…? Now that I've thought about it, I started to trace back the facts, the facts I knew. I was an unwanted child since birth. My grandparents did not approve of my parents' union, and before I turned old enough to even remember the vital reflections of the world around me, I had already been adopted by a new family. Were the lives of other guardian fated in this direction as well?

 

"We cannot love one another." She repeated, carefully and slowly this time, "So, unlike you, I do not need to wonder why my parents tried to destroy each other." The cold green in her eyes crept into the back of my neck and generated a shiver, unlike the warm ones elicited whenever I admired her smile, this shiver was paralyzing, "You should give up as well."

 

"What?" I said after lagging behind in silence for a few seconds.

 

"You should stop wondering why your parents destroyed each other."

 

"How… do you know about my parents?" I slightly narrowed my eyes.

 

"Everyone knows about us, Nader. Humans read the details of our daily lives with their morning coffee. We were created to guide them, and in return they smother us with their prying and crush us beneath their feet." Where…was this conversation going?

 

"I don't even ask people about my past. The moment I live in is what matters." I frowned, "I only know that my parents committed suicide when I was a child. And I've alrea--"

 

"I already know your story, but don't you believe everything you're told." she lightly sniggered, "In fact, my mother was so evil, I bet her presence was somehow related to your parents' death."

 

That's right…the past to me was insignificant, I already had a better family who embraced me for who I really am. But did she just suggest that her mother might have murdered my parents? Was she aware of the words that spilt from her lips? Was this really the same I person I met by the drinking fountain an hour ago? A trigger was pressed against my head and my last bits of patience breathed out and expired with the autumn wind. My fists automatically clenched around my back satchel.

 

"Laken (but), you know?" she continued, the composed tone was awfully irritating now, "Even if it was true. I don't think my mother was a bad person." Didn't she just describe her as evil?

 

"Stop it…You make no sense." I muttered in between gritted teeth.

 

"She was born a heroine like all other guardians, but this cold world had turned her into a fiend."

 

"Enough!"

 

"What…?" her composed voice suddenly dropped to a raw smaller tenor, and once my head shot back up and our eyes met, I internally gasped at the new shade in her green. Her expression looked as if she had just been awakened by my abrupt scream.

 

"Did you not pay attention to your words…!?" I retorted taking two steps backwards, as if just being near her alone was threatening, "I don't care what happened to my parents or how it happened, the past means nothing to me. Do you hear that? Nothing." A soundless pair of slightly perplexed green met my angry dark ones behind the glasses, "I hate the way you deny our ability to love, I hate the way you contempt humans, and I hate the way you talk about either of our families."

 

"Listen," she sighed glancing sideways, "it's--"

 

"I've listened enough." I interrupted turning around, my feet approaching the passage ahead on the left, "Now it's your turn." I didn't have much left to rant about anyway. I warily looked back at her behind my shoulder, "I don't think you're strange or unwanted. But you are weak. Surrendering to people's unfair treatment and using it as an excuse to harm them like your mother did…it all proves nothing but weakness."

  

The whole conversation intermingled in between my dislocated thoughts and I felt tired, taking the turn on the left. I could hear the blonde's footsteps quietly resuming after a short pause; we'd naturally take the same exit after all. As I took the turn on the left, and the large bottle green gate came to sight. There was a black bike slanted against the wall on the opposite side of the gate. Were there still students left  in the school building?

 

A pair of long legs in a P.E uniform emerged right in front of me, and I did not manage to stop from bumping into that person's lower chest. It wasn't painful but it was sudden at the very wrong time since I had been previously irritated.

 

"Well, well," a young male voice said, "Where were we going?" I looked up and my squinted eyes met the metallic grey. It was the good-looking boy back at the orchard entrance; short, straight dark brown hair to the ears, light caramel skin wrapped in clean looking jacket over the uniform , unlike his friends' whose thin faded fabrics seemed not warm enough for this town's sting of cold. They stood behind him like typical, bad-looking bodyguards; the one on the right had dark brown skin and a poker face behind glasses, the one on the left had fair skin and a tattoo-like scar on his lower left cheek.

 

"I'm going home." Wasn't it obvious?

 

"Really." Grey-eyes said.

 

"You're not going home." The scarred boy neutrally said.

 

What was that about? My arms and legs slightly shook. I looked at Shams behind my shoulder; she was standing still with the purple bag in one hand, no signs of fear in her shade of green.

 

Author's Note

This part was mostly conversational, but it's important in later chapter. I did not like this chapter very much because it was serious and dry and there was no comedy or adventure part to read over and over again and laugh at :( I like funny stuff, (and yes, i do that, re-read my writings and enjoy it...lol)

Thanks for reading. Comments, reviews, corrections are welcome. Do not hesitate to criticize !!

Reviews

[Rouillie Wilkerson]

I couldn't summon the patience to read this through today, so I scanned it and find that you have a very keen way with words. However, I'll have to make a point to come back and read it again, it is definitely worth reading! No rating to be fare...

[TL Boehm]

"She's heavy and loud and she loves to try out whatever recipes she finds in her chunky cook book."
EXCELLENT! EXCELLENT Line - if this were a movie - this would be quoted!

[Coyote Poetry]

The chapter was so good. The conversation brought me in and held me to the end. You create two interesting characters. The flow of the story is very good. A outstanding chapter. It was a pleasure to be able to read.
Coyote

[Calypso]

The first line was amazing! Love this.

[Janice Ann]

Your author's note was incorrect, at least to me as the reader. This part gave a background of the characters and the conversation was a little hard at first but that's because I had to keep reading, and I was rewarded with a well written, complex look into what is yet to come. Great write. I have two more chapters to read, so I think this set a high standard. :P

[Deviant Works]

I didn't think this chapter was dry. The pineapple part cracked me up, I loved it.:) Now I really like the turn this side chapter is taking, Shams evil-animal-slayer side coming into the light. I have been anticipating this chapter just to find out if she is who I thought she was, wicked Madam Sham. I love this story, how you went back in time to give us more on Dr. Farfoor's past and how things came to be as they are in Jad's story. Awesome, Wella. And I am so excited I have another chapter to read!:)

[Norma M Sutton]

I saw a typo or two, but can't remember exactly were. I'm a little tired tonight. I agree the chapter is dry and though it is not humorous it has a dangerous edge to it. I also reread what I've written and either like it or not.