Flash Fiction

08/23/2008

Elanora,

This is it. THE END…. Finally!!! Every beginning has an ending…
Can’t say that I wasn’t expecting it… but I never thought that it would be this hard either.

There are a million things I want to change in life and countless mistakes that I want to undo… being a software developer and also a person who had believed in science over God all my life… I have always believed that things could be fixed… all of them! I guess everyone’s wrong once in a while…

I always believed that for every situation in life there are 3 choices at our intellect’s disposal: To do the right thing… To do the wrong thing and the thing that we ultimately land up doing.

I wish I had made the right choices; but then again; are these choices that are right or wrong… or their consequences? I mean if I take my bike and go for a ride… and end up dying in a crash. Was it the decision that I went for a ride that was wrong or just the outcome. Guess I need to go out for a ride to find out…

But regardless of the outcome, I have no regrets about the choice I made of picking the person I gave my heart to… the outcome may have been pain, agony, anger, jealousy, hatred, pride, envy, greed and more or less every possible sin at some point of the other… but it had its loving moments…it was oxymoronic… like a bitter-sweet symphony.

And as I write this entry, which in all certainty is my last… I feel lost in the thoughts and memories in my pensive… I feel lost in her… Lost in Life…

- Arman

“If you switch on the lights at night, it doesn’t make a day…
To make your presence felt, all one has to do is, stay.
Life is like a search for a needle in the hay…
Don’t worry, my friend…Love will find a way!”

Love at first sight is an emotional condition whereby a person feels romantic attraction for a stranger on the first encounter with the stranger. The stranger may or may not be aware that the other person has any such notion, and may not even be aware of the other person’s presence.

- Wikipedia

I was staring at the screen with my mind drifting in Neverland…. That’s when Gags punched me at the back and sort of woke me up from a dream…and said: “Ooooooooooohhh…. Love at first sight…. So who is unfortunate gal…Mate??”

I tried to dodge the question by saying that I was just randomly searching stuff at Wikipedia, but that’s the problem with good friends… more so with best friends… they build a sort of super power of always catching you in mid of your lies, goof ups, embarrassing moments and then exploiting the situation to the fullest. Gags too had that look in the eyes. And by not uttering a word he had made his point.
So resistibly, I started talking, “Well it’s just a girl I saw the other day…”

“Phew…. That’s a big relief… I was under the impression you were planning to hook up with a Guy… Come on!!! Even Ami (Another one of my best friends club….whose Leg-Pulling seemed to be the favorite pass time activity for everyone in the group) could figure out that it’s a girl…You mind filling in the details you moron”, Gags retorted.

I continued at my own sweet leisurely pace, “I just saw her yesterday; she was there with her father at school in front of the Princy’s office.”

I could tell that Gags was having the time of his life interrogating me, he commented “So did it seem like a personal visit… If she is not from our school then it’s a good chance that she might be some sort off relative to our dear old grumpy Principal. If I were you I would not even in my wildest dreams, even think going anywhere near her!”

“Now, IF it was a personal visit, the Princy wouldn’t have kept them waiting in the lounge for over an hour, would he?” I felt proud of coming up with a self consoling theory in reply.

Gags continued his brow beating … “Ahaan… so that’s why you were taking so many breaks to take a leak…so you could get your eye-tonic… and here we were all worried that you were having a kidney failure!!! So how does she look like?”

“Well she looks like undercover angel… her hair flows like waves on the ocean floor… the glow on her face beats the moonlight any given day… She has the smile to put spring in full blossom to shame …” I regretted saying this as soon as I realized how cheeky it sounded. The expected reaction was profoundly staring back at me from Gags face.

“For the love of God… what has happened to my good old’ sarcastic witty obnoxious fucker of a friend who used to consider all the mills n boons crap to be a bunch load of bullshit. Look at yourself… one meeting with her and you have gone bananas. Lord knows what disaster awaits us in the Pandora’s Box!!! Did you catch the name of this ‘Undercover Angel’ of yours? Or you are planning to Google on the description you just gave to me to try your luck finding her again?” snapped Gags.

I carried on ignoring the sarcasm,” Well, I didn’t exactly meet her, just saw her…. But I know it… She is THE ONE… I have never been so sure my entire life…”

Gags jumped on the opening I gave him, “Well, you said the same feeling of surety about the solution to the 2nd question in our Test last week. You were sure your solution was correct. And I believed you, into copying it from your answer sheet. We both wrote the answer as 2916 liters instead of correct answer of 25 meters… remember?? It’s our Math teacher who is an ‘Undercover Angel’ for not reporting us to the principal! So I suggest you better forget her! As it is, there’s better chance of you catching hold of an extra terrestrial organism, than seeing her again in your life time! And here’s the Breaking News my friend, free of cost: Miracles don’t happen in this part of the world anymore….”

As soon he completed his quirky remarks, which FYI usually happens to be my preferred style of communication, I felt a gentle breeze pass me by and the sweetest perfume to accompany it, and there she was she… just crossing us by, as if floating in some another dimension, unaware of the surroundings. It was much later I understood, that love strikes your senses in more than one ways granting you the ability to experience nature, smell, touch, in ways never imagined before and at times leaving you so numb that zombies look like having a time of their lives. But at this particular moment all I could do was ogle at her, as Ahmed Sir called her up in front of the class when we were having our Computer practical.

I tugged Gags and said in excited voice, “Miracles do happen brotha…. Miracles DO Happen!!! There she is!!! She is the one….”

Gags was in two minds, whether to believe me or to believe that I was to be officially declared paranoid. But one look at her and he knew, that the latter was most certainly not he case…

Ahmed sir announced, “Class please pay attention here, I want you all to meet your new classmate Shirin Sharma. Please assist her in every way possible to get her speed up to whatever we have covered in the last month. She couldn’t join us at the Start of class 11th as the Tenth board results came late this year… again. Arman please assist her for Computer subject and please refrain yourself from trying to help her on any other subject please.”

The whole class was laughing at admittedly a good remark by our ever-so-witty Ahmed Sir, and since I was too engrossed admiring her laughter, I didn’t realize that the joke was on me… until I saw those pearly eyes staring at me. I replied in an inaudible voice, “Sure Sir… wouldn’t even dream of it Sir!” This probably is a good time to explain that I was very good in computers at my school, perhaps one of the best, if I must say so myself, but sadly my competence was not that profound in other subjects. I always passed without much effort but was not in the league of toppers… far from it. My incompetence was owing to many reasons, lack of interest being the top one of them. But that’s a different story altogether.

So with that introduction, she walked towards me, and my brain was stimulating it’s first ever slow motion walk. She extended her hand towards me and said, “Hi”… the sound of it echoed in my ears for eternity, as I watched her dumbfounded. Gags elbowed me and said “Unfreeze!! You can now greet her”.

I shook her hand with my trembling hands and it felt so cold, sending a chill down my spine. And she remarked with a twinkle in her eyes “Aren’t you guys a bit too old to play Freeze-Unfreeze?”

I went red by embarrassment, so gave a week smile and provided covering fire, “Well, we try to keep the kid in us alive, by indulging into such childish activities at times… it greatly helps lighten the pressure of ever expanding course and limitless expectations of parents and teachers…”

Gags whispered, “Good show man, nice cover!!! Glad to have you back on the team!”

Shirin gave a hearty smile and responded, “That’s a really nice thought. Mind me joining you guys sometime?”

Gags interfered, “Well we generally avoid others barging into our gang but I guess we can make an exception at your case. I am Gagan by the way, and everyone calls me Gags”.

“Well hello, Gags!!!” she said in a chirpy voice.

“And I am Arman… and well everyone calls me…Err… Arman!” …I said cheerfully, then realized, ‘everyone calls me Arman… coz my name IS Arman… pure Genius’… what was I thinking????

“Well I gathered as much, from the fabulous introduction Ahmed Sir gave of you. You must have made quite an impression on him”, she replied.

On any other day, I would have caught the sarcasm in her remarks and retorted likewise, but not today…not to her. “Well I had made a couple of games on C last year, so he seems to be pretty impressed. But as he rightly mentioned I suck at other subjects. And you on the other hand are obviously a topper, right?”

“Well, in entire modesty… I did top in my previous school. But how did you know?” she said with an innocent look in her face. And I immediately knew what was coming her way.
“You see. This is DPS, unquestionably the most prestigious school in the city. And since they accepted you in mid Class 11, you obviously have some potential or are filthy rich; otherwise Princy wouldn’t have let you in. So going by your way of interacting with us, in a humble manner, and also considering your normal watch and old bag, your chance of being filthy rich diminishes to a minimal. That leaves us with the only remaining option of you being a very bright student. It’s elementary my dear Watson!” Gags completed his explanation with a triumphant smile.

“So you must be the super intelligent man living at 221b Baker’s Street I presume…” she said with a smirk.

“What made you think so? I live in Street 23, Sector 10!” Gags said being totally confused.

“Good One, Shirin”, I said laughing.

“May I know what’s so funny?” asked Gags.

“221b Bakers Street… happens to be the address of the person who coined the famous quote ‘Elementary my dear Watson…’ it’s not funny when you have to explain the joke Mr. Holmes” Shirin said full of sarcasm. And all three of us started laughing.

That was the moment Gags and I both felt sure, that she was going to fit right in our group.

And that is how we met.

“It is always hard to say the right things at the right time… But harder it is, to leave unsaid the right thing at a wrong time.”

Life seemed perfect….Couldn’t have asked more out of it. Shirin used to come over to my place on weekends. I taught her C/C++ as it was the only area she was weak at; and she taught me everything else. My mom doted on her, as obviously she was pretty, charming, well cultured and most importantly was getting her son to take interest in studies. And mom’s kinda have sensors to detect their son’s other kinda interest too. She never said it in so many words, but I knew that she knew that I had a thing for Shirin.
And she seemed to silently approve my choice.

I had told everything I felt about Shirin to my sister Chotu. We were twins but, our interests were wayyyyy contradictory. While I fell in the geek/nerd category…She was all interested in arts. She took commerce stream, as science was too much to handle for her. We used to beat each other up with pillows, fight daily, taddle-tail on each other… but there was no one on earth whom I loved more in Life… not even Shirin. So not surprisingly, Chotu and Shirin soon became the best of friends. We used to hang out together in my colony as Shirin, Rigs, Deej, Ansh all the gals in our gang lived near by. And Gags, Rishi, Ami, Aatma and CC that constituted the male gang never cared or bothered about the distance. So we hung out each day at a small restaurant, ate Samosa’s and drank coke with way more style than how Al Pacino drank Jack Daniels in ‘Scent of a Woman’. And more often than always, Shirin and I would be the last to leave.

We would always, sit on a bench that was outside our colony. The bench was just sort of in between the woods. And there at peace we would talk our heart out, share each and everything about our lives, from things like what Shampoo is better for dry hair….To how she coped when her mom passed away when she was only 8.

I kept on trying to win her over by doing everything in my power…doing everything she likes, trying to make her happy in every breath she took, bought her expensive gifts, followed everything that my self proclaimed love guru friends told me too… but to no avail.

And in the course I unraveled certain facts:

- Not all girls are impressed by expensive gifts. No they don’t think that you are treating them special by the price tag on the gifts. They feel special, when you are by their side when they need you.

- The amount of time you spend on phone or are together does not indicate the amount of interest she is taking in you.

- If you try and do everything for her that demands a little IQ or effort, then you are not going to make her happy, but are surely going to piss her off.

- Calvin, was absolutely bang-on correct when he said that, ‘the best presents do not come in boxes’.

Everyone but her, in our group knew how I felt about her and tried their best to get us officially dating. But she was always content with just friendship and I always wanted more… So she always insisted and I always persisted. Everyone thought that it was only a matter of time, and I had no issues waiting for eternity, if I was waiting for her.

But as we know, nothing lasts forever…So in our all perfect life the moment of agony arrived in Class 12th while we were nearing our pre-board exams. The exam tension and the worries related to an indecisive future were catching up on everybody’s nerves. The only people who were undeterred by such feelings were the good for nothing scum of the society. We were attending a tuition classes Shirin was sitting in the front with other girls. And I, backbencher as I was, was sitting in the remotest seat in the class. That’s when I saw Varun the biggest jerk of our school who perfectly fitted the scum definition passing comments on Shirin. I tried to ignore it the best I could, but every one has its limits… so did I. As soon as the class ended, I dragged him out and we both were indulged in punching and kicking each other, till people intervened and stopped us. By this time everyone in class was keenly watching us as the by standing crowd always does.

And that’s when Varun said, “What is your problem? I never did anything to you fucker?”

“Its because of all the sick things you said about Shirin you asshole” I shouted in anger.

“And what business does that have with you? She is not your sister is she??” he scorned.

“I love her… and you’ll have much more coming your way, if you ever took her name from your filthy mouth again” I cried in rage.

Gags and Rishi took dragged me away… as I saw Shirin leaving… with tears in her eyes.

The incident became the talk of the town in no time, and everyone in school seemed to be gossiping about it. Shirin didn’t come to school for a week. Then we had our pre-board exams that I flunked to no ones surprise. I tried calling her each day… she never returned a call. Even her father said that she needs to concentrate on studies. I asked my other friends to try and reach out to her, but she didn’t respond.

About a couple of weeks later she started talking to the gang but ignored me. She used to scoot whenever she saw me, and my friends said that she probably needs some time alone, and I shouldn’t bother her during exams. As always friends were right, but at time like these mind loses its sanity and I kept on weeping and cursing myself.

The day the exams were over, I went to her home. I had made up my mind that I we need to talk this over once and for all. Once I reached there their house maid informed that she has left to visit her aunt for a couple of months.

I tried to trace her but couldn’t find any contact information. Results were out. She failed to get into IITs or RECs. I cursed myself believing that it was my fault, as I knew she was capable of doing it. I did ok by my standards and got into a college in Pune. Our whole gang landed up in one college or the other in the same city too. She never returned back to our home town.

I tried to let her go… Let life be… But it was impossible for me. There were many unanswered questions, too many things unsaid… I refused to let this be the ending…

“A long time ago someone said to a loser who was whining…
Look my Son, every dark cloud has a silver lining.
Fate experiments with us, in this Sin City…
If it turns out Bad it’s a pity, and if it turns good we call it Serendipity!”

I was still in my freshmen year when we went to Pune Central, as the girls needed to do some shopping and the food court had become our place to crash. I was just cruising through the new arrivals when on the far end of the floor I saw Shirin.

I couldn’t believe my eyes. I had waited for this moment for almost a year, to just meet her once…to talk to her. I had thought of everything I will say to her… but time seemed to have stopped when I was slowly walking towards her. It wasn’t till I had almost reached right next to her that she noticed me. We both just kept staring at each other with teary eyes and no one spoke a word.

I built up some courage and finally broke the silence, “Hi…”
She responded with a “Hi…” that seemed to have involved great strength and swallowing of some tears to come up.

And then began the most awkward conversation I ever had in life…

I said to her, “Do you have some time? Can we talk somewhere?”

She replied, “I have to meet some friends of mine at E-Square in about an hour… we can sit at the food court till then.”

“Sounds great” was my answer. As we strolled towards the food court, I got a text message from Ami saying, “Do NOT screw this up mate. We’ll meet you back at the flat.” I smiled thinking that I had not lost on everything in life; I still had the greatest friends in the world, by my side. And that sort of boosted the morale.

So we sat there in a corner seat and started talking. The conversation was awkwardly formal at first. I asked her, “How have you been? Where are you these days?” To which she replied, “I am doing fine. I got into a Mass Communication Course here in Pune. How did you do after… emmm… exam?”

By this time I was trying hard to control my emotions, and said “I somehow survived… the exam that is…”

“So you are also studying in Pune?” asked Shirin, in futile efforts to carry on a normal conversation.

“Yup, along with everyone else from the gang.” was my casual reply.

There was an awkward pause that seemed to last forever. We both were avoiding any eye contact. Finally, I couldn’t take it anymore and blurted out, “Why did you leave all of a sudden. Was that so easy for you? Just to turn your back on us and forget everything? If you were mad at me, you could have shouted at me, cursed me… you could have said something… anything? And you didn’t even get in touch with any of us. What was Chotu, Deej, Rigs and others’ fault? Why did they have to loose a friend due to my screw up?”

She started crying and hid her face. I wanted to take out my anger and frustration. But couldn’t… Seeing her cry crushed whatever part of me was left alive inside. I tried to console her… “Hey, am sorry! You don’t need to explain anything to me…”

And she cried, “Stop it will you! Stop being so nice… That’s why I left… That’s why I didn’t contact you. That day…That day seeing you so angry…fighting for me…I never saw that side of you…and I never ever want to see it again. We were friends…best friends and then you said you loved me. Losing my mom was the most awful feeling that I ever had…the person I loved more than anything…still do…and I can’t beer the thought of going through that again. So I had made up my mind long ago. That I’ll settle in life with whomsoever my dad selects for me… As I know that most of these flings never last. Getting away from you guys was, hard enough for me…And when I knew how much you cared for me, I decided to let go. I didn’t want you to go through the same pain later in life, as I did. It will end badly for you and I don’t want to be the cause of your pain later…”

All this was taking a toll on me…All this time I thought she hated me. And somehow that thought was easier to bear. I said to her “Idiot…Dumbo…You think the timing would have made any difference…Your leaving me now would be easier for me to handle than 5 yrs from now? Is that what you think? It is not possible for me to love you anymore 5 yrs down the line than I do right now…So what is the need to leave? Leaving now would only add more years of misery to my life…”

“But I don’t seem the same way about you…You are the best friend I ever had…Probably the best I ever will…But I don’t know if I’ll ever fall in love with you.” She said crying.

“And I don’t know that after knowing all this I could live another day without cursing my life…if you are not a part of it anymore. So either we split up without knowing of what could have been? Or we can still be friends and live a normal life…I don’t mind waiting for you to change your mind.”

There was complete silence for full 5 minutes. Then she said, “I missed you so much…buddy” and punched me on the shoulder both laughing and crying at the same time.

She called up her college friends and skipped the movie… we had dinner and an evening stroll before I dropped her back at her flat.

The air seemed lighter… Stars brighter…. Life fuller… everything seemed to be back on track… at least for the time being.

“There are things like cancer unexplained, and yet we wonder why cows go moo?
Opportunities keep on knocking, and we keep on asking it’s who… it’s who?
That’s the mystery of life… if its success, it is always a single moment…
And when it comes to failure…. It’s always déjà vu…”

So the group got reunited, the frequency of hangouts increased astronomically…the intensity of hangovers too increased proportionally. Life was good.

But as some great person said ‘What goes up, must come down’ and as we all know that great men are usually right. A couple of years down the line; I got blinded by the happiness surrounding me. I was so engrossed in thought of Shirin that I started ditching my friends…the friends who stood by me through all the troubled times…

And Shirin, she had made new friends at her college and we were unable to meet frequently. As we went to our final year in college…we started preparing for bagging a job. I knew pressure was on everyone… the next couple of months were going to determine the course of our life….I knew that people need to spend hours and days at the friends house for the sake of final year project completion. I did too…and that was the fun part of it. But I was too possessive for Shirin, to insecure of losing her again, too jealous of anyone who got close to her. I was unable to see the rationality of right and wrong at that moment in time, as I see now…and that resulted in my constant bickering and cribbing of us not being able to spend more time together. I even began to imagine that she is ignoring me.

Such is the trickery of love for love is stranger than death…

All of this took a toll on us and we decided to meet and talk about this… She tried to put up her point explaining to me, that she had made her point earlier that we were not a couple and she was free to go anywhere with anyone. She even gave me explanations of her, missing out on our meetings lately, which she didn’t have to.

That was the moment of self realization for me…what was I thinking? She is not my wife…We are not even dating…Friends…that’s all we are… and that too not even good one. For you never have to explain yourselves to good friends… they always seem to understand… always seem to forgive… always trust and believe in you. Was I doing all this? Most certainly not…

So she did what was to be expected from any sane person. She calmly put dirt on the grave I so efficiently dug for myself. She said that we should probably step back a little, for a while. Let our minds clear up.

I was ashamed of myself…I wanted to disappear…I knew that there was no turning back from this…I had officially screwed up the relation we had…as everything could be forgotten, but once trust is lost… it takes a lifetime to recover…and that was what I was going to offer. I was stammering as I said, “You know, you don’t have to cut off others in the group for my screw ups, right?”
“Am not cutting off anyone, you dumbo… We are best friends and will be… forever… we just need some time to clear our heads…that’s all there is to it…” was her assuring response. Though we both sensed certain inexplicable hollowness in those words…

So we both got placed into good firms…with dreams fulfilled…future secured…things slowly and steadily head back to being as normal between Shirin and me… as normal as they could be. We still talked almost everyday…met at least twice a month owing to work and corporate life. But the spark…it got lost somewhere…I had come to terms that we were not meant to be together. My friends they had not yet given up their hopes and still tried their level best to somehow trigger a flame to moist wood that too with no light.

Meanwhile, god/fate/destiny/the one power… whatever name you might wanna give to it… decided to play me tricks with me. Since I was going nowhere near making a concrete decision, they made one for me. I was provided a chance to

My firm gave me an offer I couldn’t refuse…They said they were sending me to US on an L1 Visa for 7 yrs. Happy though I was with the great offer and limitless opportunities for excelling in career that it brought along with it. But with it came a blow to my personal life…what about Shirin? She was 23, beautiful, smart, cultured, witty, well educated…and the very definition of every goddamn good quality highlighted in any matrimonial site. Surely, her father would be thinking of getting her married by next year and it would take a man to be the biggest loser on earth to say no to such a girl. So if I left then, it would’ve been the end of my love story…and a very lame end that.

I felt like one of those contestants being given an option to either leave the game with either Rs10,000 or chose one of the 100 doors and there’s a million behind one of them. Now I know that chances of me, finding that one door out of a hundred is well one in hundred, which does not seem so re-assuring. But I like a million; I would really…really love to have a million! And even if I don’t get it…I can’t stand the thought of spending the rest of my life thinking…What if…What if I had picked the right door?

So a decision was made… I was going to pick a door…I was going to propose to Shirin.

Shirin had gone home to visit her father on his birthday. And I decided to go home too for visiting the family before I flew off for 7 yrs. They were understandably quite concerned about how I was going to make it there. Chotu didn’t fight me for the whole week…which was her way of showing how upset was she on the prospect of my leaving.

So on the deceitful day… Wait I even remember the date… 23rd of August that yr… Shirin and I met at the same bench we had spent those countless evenings together. She was visibly upset on my leaving too. She knew that with the work, different time zones and different culture altogether…things were going to change between us. She got me a Gel candle that she had made herself…It was the single most beautiful object I had ever seen…. There was a fairy inside blue gel filled wine glass…I could have stared and admired it forever…if there wasn’t the case that the fairy I loved was sitting right across me.
I had prepared a full speech… that I will tell her everything…. All that I felt about her…right from the moment I laid my eyes upon her…and may be… may be she’d realize how much I loved her. But all that words I could manage were, “I love you…I’ve always loved you since the first day we met. And I want to grow old with you…your silly laugh… your idiotic incidents and your stupid story telling is what keeps me alive each day… So Shirin Sharma…will you marry me!”
“I… I can’t!” was her reply in tears. “My dad has fixed my marriage with someone…he told me a couple of days back. I was going to tell you about it in person today.”

“And you have said yes to him… a complete stranger about whom you know nothing about?” I stammered. I was in turmoil of thought by then…I still can’t figure out what it was…sadness…surely; anger…a bit yes; frustration…most certainly; put in some regret too…I was expecting a no…had made up my mind for it… but this… this was a huge blow…

A man is someone who is capable of taking a punch in more than one ways… I’ve always managed to get up when life threw one at me… but this one had knocked me over…

It wouldn’t have taken a genius to figure out; that she going under an emotional turbulence too… She spoke in almost an inaudible voice, “I had known him for about 3 months now… I met him at a wedding I attended this summer…We have been in touch since then… My dad approves of his family…”

“And you… you said yes to him in 3 months… and you couldn’t to me in 8 yrs… is he that good… or was I that bad…” it was my frustration speaking.

“Please don’t make it harder for me, than it already is… I always told you we were friends… I still love you more than him… as a friend… but you don’t marry everyone you like do you… I had told you from start that this will not work out between us” she said.

“So that is it then…I can’t see you with someone else… I am not built that way…So to save us some trouble…I will never bother you again…Whatever keeps you happy…After all, that’s what I always wanted… Hope you have a good life ahead…with the luckiest man in the world.”

All my friends knew that I was going to propose to her… and were waiting for us to return. I walked home told my friends not to mention her name again in front of me…as I’ll try and forget her…as if it was possible. They knew nothing that they could do or say was going to be of any consolation to me…

I wrote the last entry to my diary…As nothing in life would be worth mentioning…worth remembering anymore…

I told Chotu everything before leaving… and explained that talking to everyone in the gang including her… only brought her memories. So I need some time alone… and went back to Pune. I was supposed to fly for US in a month’s time. I got to know that it was Shirin’s engagement in a week.

On the day, Shirin was supposed to get engaged; I decided that I’ll go out for a ride and get drunk…which seemed like the standard protocol for men in similar situations.