Elite in the City

ELITE IN THE CITY

CHAPTER 1: FAHD

The ringing phone filled him with dread. It was his boss calling. He had missed another day of work today, the third consecutive day this week.

‘He’s going to be very, very pissed off!’

Fahd desperately switched the phone from his right hand to his left.

It would probably have been easier if he would have turned the ringing off. All he needed to do was to lightly touch the volume button on the left edge of his Samsung cell phone, and at least the threatening, repetitive monotony of his ringtone would have been silenced. Then the only thing he would have to deal with would be his boss’s name being displayed on the screen, menacingly refusing to give up.

‘What do I do?’ he asked himself while pacing up and down his apartment.

It was a large, sparsely furnished, three bedroom apartment seemingly designed for desperate situations like this. That wasn’t the reason Fahd has rented this place. He liked to spend, and usually more than he could afford. Although he earned more than many did at 30, he was nonetheless penniless because of his constant spending habits. He liked to think himself classy, but really he was nothing more than simply spendthrift.

Not that he was a shopaholic. He had specific taste in things, and he liked to buy them. It wasn’t even planned. In fact, that was probably part of the problem: the unplanned, unnecessary purchases of very expensive things. It was a discipline issue.

Now expensive taste needs a source of revenue. Fahd was a university professor, with good research experience. He had been hired recently at a very pleasant salary. Fahd loved books, and therefore it made sense that he be made the managing editor of the university’s research journal. Unfortunately, Fahd’s lack of discipline carried over here as well, and sometimes he just didn’t go to work. Not that it affected the quality of his work at all, though, since he was so good at what he did, he could complete in a month what his predecessors did in six. Naturally this made his boss a little less severe in reprimanding his constant absences. But it didn’t stop him entirely.

The phone stopped ringing. Finally Iqbal, Fahd’s boss, had given up. Fahd stopped pacing and plopped down onto his sofa, and scratched his head.

‘Why didn’t I go to work today?’ he wondered. ‘I need to regulate my life.’

He got up and moved towards his kitchenette. What is done is done, he decided. He couldn’t undo the day, couldn’t start over. He could, however, decide to be regular from tomorrow. This made him feel a little better.

‘What will I tell my boss?’ he wondered, while pouring coffee into his mug. ‘I’ll think of something. . .’

He went through all possible excuses he could give. He snapped out of this reverie when he spilled some coffee on his hand. It was scalding to say the least.

‘Damn it!’ he thought. ‘I always do this . . . every time! Damn it’.

The burn wasn’t serious, but it still hurt. Fahd looked at it for a few seconds, and then decided it was too much trouble to look for a band-aid. He picked up his coffee mug and moved back towards the sofa, which was his favorite sitting place.

The cushion where Fahd always sat had sunk in, and needed repair. Fahd had been delaying this for many weeks since he noticed it, every time thinking that he would do it tomorrow. He knew his habit of postponing stuff that needed to be done, but by the time he realized he needed to set his life in order, he looked around and felt the best possible order of things was already in effect. He had his books, movies, video games and TV all properly installed in a home theater system in his study. He had good clothes, and a nice car. True, his wife had left him because of his inconsistencies, but that was mostly his wife’s fault. Transferring guilt was the best way to deal with it.
He had been married for almost three years when his wife simply couldn’t take it anymore. She left, and cut off contact. Fahd’s folks tried to mediate, but until then it didn’t look like it would work out. She told his parents that he was emotionally and financially unstable, and that she felt unsafe with him. At first Fahd scorned, stormed, raged, and angered at being insulted this way. How dare she leave him, after what he had done for her? Eventually, when a few months passed he realized that perhaps she was right. He was unstable in practically every way.

Although he had no inclination to become one, he was the perfect example of a serial killer. He was underweight, and not moderately at that, he had changed three jobs in the last five years. He had a tumultuous relationship with his family, with frequent tiffs between him and his parents, and now his wife left. He fit the TV serial killer profile to a tee.

He sat down and stared at the wall in front of him. On it was a print of Rene Margritte’s ‘The Son of Man’, also known lovingly as ‘Man in a Bowler Hat’. This painting was one of the few things that made Fahd happy. It made sense to him. The painting depicts a seaside background, with a man in a suit and a bowler hat just standing there, arms at his side. In front of his face, however, floats an apple. To Fahd it made some sort of twisted sense. The vastness of the ocean made him calm, and the suit was familiar, since he came from a family of bureaucrats. The apple hovering in front of the man’s face, however, he could not understand. But it definitely belonged there, did not seem at all strange or out of place. Fahd could stare at this painting for hours.

In fact, in certain matters he was remarkably consistent. Most notably, he would read the same books over and over again. He had kept ‘The Son of Man’ on his Facebook page as his profile photograph since he signed up for it many years ago. He rarely went out, and had an extremely regular schedule, albeit one not following the social norm. Like clockwork, he awoke in the morning and used the toilet. He shaved every day, irrespective of whether it was the weekend, and off day, or he was going out. Also, he stayed mostly at home. All his friends (there were no more than three of them), came and visited him. He was very lucky in this respect, that his friends didn’t mind coming to him. They never really expected anything back. It was a rare occurrence indeed when Fahd left his house for his person. His shopping was limited, and either his sister or his mother dropped off supplies. He needed few things, and his taste in food was not specific. He was a sucker for cleanliness, and kept his rooms and car very neat. It was under the threat of death that passengers smoked or ate in his car. You drop something, you die. Fortunately, Fahd was so direct, that people did not mind his saying this. Even if they did mind, he didn’t really care that much anyway for other people’s thoughts.

He did smoke, however, but not heavily, never more than seven or eight cigarettes a day. He did have the unbecoming habit of lighting used cigarettes, but that was only because he never smoked a full cigarette at one time, he usually took a few puffs and simply put it out. When he next felt like it, he lit the same cigarette. He knew this was dangerous, and added to the already dangerous habit of smoking, but somehow he liked it. He never thought about why he did it, it was just his thing.

Thinking of smoking made him feel like having a cigarette with his coffee. His hand blindly searched around him for the packet and lighter while he sipped and thought. It wasn’t there.

‘Where did I keep them last night? Damn.’ he wondered.

If there was one thing he hated, it was losing stuff. Everything he had he catalogued in his brain. Whatever he did not need he mostly gave or threw away. Most of all he hated losing his cigarettes. He knew the reason for losing them so often too. After he had a cigarette, he simply left the cigarette wherever it was. He rarely thought about the next time he would need it. He should pay more attention, though, he thought, his craving for nicotine increasing with his annoyance. The phone rang again. This time it was his friend, Wazir.

Wazir was younger than Fahd by a few years, but fairly more mature, sporty, and focused. Fahd sometimes admitted this, and sometimes didn’t. He felt that in order to be like Wazir, one needed to have a certain mindset, and Fahd had his own mindset. People are different, and that’s not necessarily a bad thing, he told himself. He answered the phone.

‘What are you doing right now?’ Wazir asked. He was curt that way.

‘Nothing much, at home, didn’t go to work today.’ Fahd answered casually, thinking about cigarettes at the same time.

‘I am coming over, I have to move furniture into my new office.’ said Wazir proudly.

‘You have an office? Listen, I have to go somewhere, I’ll call you when I get back.’ Fahd lied. He just didn’t feel like leaving his apartment that day.

‘You are an asshole’, said Wazir, and hung up.

Wazir wasn’t angry or anything, Fahd knew. He just liked to abuse people for the heck of it. Fahd and his other friends had gotten used to this over the years they had known each other. Fahd thought about Wazir’s office as he went round his apartment turning over his stuff looking for his smokes.

Wazir had left his job, one that Fahd had helped him get, in order to start his own firm. At first Wazir wanted to start a commodity trading firm, but eventually settled for civil construction works.

‘Hmm . . .’ thought Fahd, ‘I thought it was just a phase, looks like he’s serious.’

Wazir was like that, serious about the strangest things. He was serious about religion, about sports, and family, but was equally unreliable in other things. At twenty six, he still didn’t have a driving license. He figured he didn’t need one until the police harassed him enough. He also had a broken down snooker table right in the middle of his lounge at home. He was a chartered accountant, and one would think that counted for something. However, Wazir was simply not interested in working.

Fahd called Wazir back. He figured he had lost the cigarettes, and would have to go out to get them anyway. If Wazir picked him up, it would certainly be an optimized use of resources to achieve the objective.

‘What the fuck do you want?’ Wazir asked.

‘Come over.’ said Fahd.

‘Okay, I’m coming over.’ Wazir answered.

CHAPTER 2: WAZIR

Wazir hung up the phone and turned his car around.

‘I knew Fahd was lying when he said he had something to do! What the hell does he have to do? He never even goes to this office!’ thought Wazir, his mouth set.

He had just ordered something to eat at a small restaurant near his office. He was cursing the furniture movers for having delayed their arrival, but at the same time thanked his stars they hadn’t arrived yet. Actually he had neglected to take his office key from the landlord, so even if the delivery was made, there was no way to put the furniture in his office.

He sped up his car right up to the crossing, where he nearly collided with another car. The shock brought him out of his daydreaming thoughts, and he noticed that his light was still red. Embarrassed and irritated, he straightened the empty bottle of Pepsi that had fallen down off the passenger seat, and forcibly pushed it into the cup holder together with a mug of old tea. He barely noticed the sun screens, empty soda bottles, used wrappers, and plastics bags that littered his car along with broken CD cases stuck wherever there was an inch or two spared.

He moved as soon as the light turned green and once again sped towards Fahd’s apartment. He thought about the money in his pocket, how his parents had gifted him the furniture, even though he could pay for it himself. Was it twenty five thousand they gave him, or twenty? Where did the five thousand disappear? He couldn’t remember.

He swerved again, barely missing a stray cat that had stepped onto the road. He didn’t give it another glance, and resumed his calculations of the day’s finances again. He noticed something funny about his pants right about then, something pleasantly itchy near the seat of his pants. The associated sound reminded him it was his cell phone on vibrate. Wazir reached into his pocket to take out his phone but couldn’t find it there. He tried reaching into the other one, but two problems stood in the way. Firstly, the oddly pleasing vibration was coming from his right butt cheek, not his left one, and secondly, it was difficult shifting gears and searching his pockets at the same time.

‘Shit, shit, SHIT!’, said Wazir as the vibration stopped.

He didn’t have any credit in his phone, he seemed always to forget it near a store, and always to remember it exactly when there was no way for him to get it. He tried looking for the phone again, and this time found it. It was in the first pocket he searched for, but had slipped through a hole in his trousers. He was sitting on his phone.

‘Well. . .,’ he thought, ‘at least there’s no credit, so if I accidentally dial a number, I won’t waste it.’ With that happy thought, he forgot about the whole incident.

Reaching Fahd’s apartment building, he got out and rang the bell. Fahd stepped outside on his balcony and made strange noises and gestures. Wazir, by this time, was again lost in thought, and his mind barely registered seeing Fahd. In a couple of minutes, Fahd came down, and yelled.

‘Why didn’t you come upstairs?’

‘Huh?’ asked Wazir, ‘Oh, we have to go. Furniture guy arriving any minute. I delayed him because of you.’

‘Oh, okay’, said Fahd, feeling guilty.

He sat down on the passenger seat in Wazir’s car and yelped.

‘What the fuck . . .?’ he growled, looking at a pen jutting outwards, stuck between the seat joints.

Wazir started laughing, and laughed right into starting the car and turning it back towards his new office. Fahd had a strange feeling this was deliberate, but with Wazir you never know. The possibility of accidents is accentuated with Wazir.

‘Why didn’t you go to work today?’ asked Wazir.

‘Things to do.’ Fahd replied.

‘Bullshit.’ said Wazir. He continued, ‘you are a lazy bum, and your life reflects it.’

‘What do you think Faisal bhai is doing right now?’ asked Fahd, shifting uncomfortably, and not because of another pen in his seat.

‘Call him and find out.’

Fahd had the strange habit of emptying his pockets every time he sat down. Even temporarily, for a little while, in someone else’s office or car, Fahd had to methodically take out his phone, his wallet, his watch, and his packet of cigarettes (which at this time he did not have any), and place them in front of him. If other people found this behavior odd they never let on. Anyway, Fahd picked up his phone and dialed Faisal’s number. It took a while, because Fahd often made mistakes dialing numbers. Some numbers he stored, some he never did. Maybe it was laziness, maybe something else, but this random selection of number storage didn’t make any sense, least of all to Fahd himself. Fortunately he never changed the way he did things simply because they didn’t make sense. It would take a lot more to make Fahd change. Fahd dialed Faisal’s number and waited. Then he cancelled the call and dialed again. He cancelled again and dialed once more. The phone connected immediately this time, and he heard the long deep tones of connection before his finger could cancel yet another time. After a few rings, Faisal picked up.

‘Fahd bhai, kaifa hala ya sheikh?’, asked Faisal, thereby also extinguishing all the Arabic he knew.

‘Faisal bhai, I am great, how are you?’ Fahd responded.

‘Fahd bhai, we need to talk . . . things are happening!’ Faisal said excitedly.

‘Great! We are coming to pick you up.’ replied Fahd.

Faisal didn’t need to be told who ‘we’ were. Who else was there except Wazir, Fahd and him? After this, Fahd hung up the phone, locked it, put it in his pocket, took it out again, and unlocked the phone, checked to see if the call had really ended, locked it again, and placed the phone between his legs, since there was no place anywhere else on the passenger seat. Wazir turned towards Faisal’s house, which was on the way to his new office.

CHAPTER 3: FAISAL

Faisal had just come out of his study when his phone rang.

‘Saira!’ he yelled at the top of his voice, despite the fact that he knew his wife was in the next room.

She didn’t respond, despite hearing him, simply because whether you respond or not, Faisal was going to yell at the top of his lungs again anyway. Faisal was angry. His plan to become a known strategic manipulator of world affairs had not materialized as he had planned. True, being an only son, his father had transferred most of his financial assets in Faisal’s name, but what was money when world domination was the key to success. But Faisal was also smart enough not to refuse his father. He wasn’t the type to go out in the world to make his fortune. Why do that when the fortune simply walked to your door one morning. His family loved him very much, and entertained even the most ridiculous of his demands. They helped him set up his own business. He helped shut it down. No worries, he often thought to himself, the world is my oyester, and I am the greatest fisherman ever born on God’s green earth.

He received the phone and his mood improved. He genuinely loved Fahd and Wazir, and there was without doubt no truer friend. He had helped Fahd through his separation, and felt good about it. Not the separation part, naturally, the helping a friend out in tough times part. He was a good friend, and a good person at heart. Fahd and Wazir were sort of a part of him, and he a part of them. No doubt, whenever either one was missing, the other two mostly talked about him. It was beautiful, if a little gay.

After talking to Fahd, Faisal yelled for his wife again, and when she came, he had forgotten what he had yelled for. Then he yelled for his mother, who was in the downstairs kitchen. She left everything and hurried up to see what her beloved son wanted.

‘Where are my glasses?’ he asked, extremely sullen for the loss of visual clarity in his life.

‘You’re wearing them.’ she said, and turned back downstairs.

‘Oh.’ thought Faisal.

He removed his glasses and cleaned them. The phone rang again, but he didn’t need to receive it. He knew Wazir was
probably outside his house, and telling him so. He yelled again, informing his family, and the neighbor’s family, that he was leaving, and ran down. He was excited.

Sitting in the backseat of the car, he leaned forward and said, ‘Fahd bhai, have you heard?’

Before Fahd could answer in the negative, Faisal continued:

‘Fahd bhai, Mushy is coming back!’.

General Pervez Musharraf, Pakistan’s Chief of Army Staff turned head-of-state was a controversial figure in Pakistani politics. Either you loved him, and wanted him back in power, or you hated him and wanted him burned alive. Faisal was perhaps the biggest fan he had, and wanted him back in power perhaps even more than Musharraf wanted to come back to power himself.

‘Fahd bhai, all his opponents will be shot dead, they are finished. Done, dead, finished!’

Faisal said, almost out of breath. He then launched into a detailed account of how some influential American had visited
some influential Pakistani, and how that influential Pakistani had reacted, and then compared this meeting to a few historic meetings in world history. He then related this to the philosophies of Machiavelli, Sun Tzu, Karl von Clausevitz and his ever favorite, Nepoleon Buonaparte, and summarized that Musharraf will come back in power sooner than his enemies expect.
Faisal loved knowledge as much as he hated real work. He was a knowledge junkie. He got off on information. If you couldn’t find something on the Internet, you could ask Faisal, and he would tell you things that probably PhD’s in the field wouldn’t know.

This was because his IQ was very high. His morale towards hard work, unfortunately, was equally low. He would try and find the shortest possible path not only while driving, but also while walking to his toilet every morning. He got up from his bed and analyzed the situation. His glasses were on the dressing table three and a half feet north by north west of the toilet. In order to make the optimum trajectory towards his destination, he would have to work out a formula based on Nepoleon’s strategy in the Battle of Waterloo. Movement, he would think, sitting on the edge of his bed, is not worth it unless you gain more from it than you are putting in. If you cannot find the optimum path towards your goal, not only is the goal not worth it, even talking or thinking about it is the worst idea ever.

Fahd, unfortunately, had the greatest respect for Faisal’s knowledge, personality, and ideas. Although he worked, he only did it because his father had given him precious little, and that little he had wasted on an MPhil program that didn’t lead anywhere. Fahd’s family believed that if you make a mistake once, you might as well shoot yourself and get your pathetic miserable excuse for an existence over with. So that was it for Fahd, no more money from there. Faisal on the other hand had handled his finances well. He had made sure he didn’t touch his capital, or even the return. He believed that anything in the world can be gotten for free, provided you know where to look. And find the most optimum route to that location. After all, it’s not free if you’ve put in any work for it, is it?

Fahd, Faisal and Wazir drove to Wazir’s office discussing various things of more or less importance. They knew practically everything that went on in each other’s lives, and that made it easy to talk to each other. It meant you didn’t have to think much before speaking, you knew that whatever you said would be taken in the best possible meaning. And that’s friendship for you.

After about a couple of hours, Wazir dropped off Faisal and Fahd at their respective residences and returned home. As soon as he reached his room and thought about lying down, his mind went through all the possibilities he had, and also to all the mistakes he did not make, that his other friends did. Fahd lost his wife. Faisal didn’t like to work. Both of them had made major mistakes, and their lives turned to shit because of it. Fahd’s more than Faisal’s. As he drifted off the sleep, his smile reflected his peace.

CHAPTER 4: AYHAN

Fahd had just entered his house when Ayhan called.

‘I’m coming over, prepare tea.’ he said over the phone.

‘Um. . .’ Fahd almost said, wanting to explain he was tired. He never got the chance.

‘Yes, lemon green tea, not jasmine. I hate jasmine’. Ayhan hung up.

Ayhan was driving fast, really fast. He didn’t care about the world. Did the world care about him? No, the world did not care about him, that’s why he didn’t care about the world. The world had always been against him. And he had stood up to it. He was the kind of guy legends are written about.

He tightened his chubby fingers on the steering wheel, and increased his speed further. About a mile from Fahd’s house, he called him up.

‘I’m outside, let me in!’.

He then proceeded to ring up one of his bitterest enemies, and told him to go fuck his mother, but in polite bureaucratic language. He then called up his other fellow bureaucrats, and told each of them, with great embellishment, that he had abused the son of a bitch, and left him weeping in the dust. Imagining that was beautiful, the sunset on the Karachi desert, his enemies kneeling down in front of him begging for mercy, while Ayhan kicked each to the dust with pitiless disregard.
Thinking thus, Ayhan missed Fahd’s apartment building entirely, and had to turn back when he snapped out of his reverie. He stopped outside Fahd’s apartment and saw Fahd waiting for him downstairs. He pushed Fahd aside and went in.

As they sat down, Fahd brought the tea. He had already set the water boiling when Ayhan had called, and as usual, had used jasmine green tea.

‘You know what happened today? I went to see my boss’ Ayhan said.

‘Oh shit.’ thought Fahd, ‘what has he done this time?’

‘I told him to go screw himself, and then I punched him hard on the nose’ said Ayhan.

‘You really did that?’ asked Fahd, while stirring his tea.

‘Yes!’ answered Ayhan. Fahd continued stirring his tea,

‘Really?’.

‘No’ said Ayhan, ‘but I would have if it had not been Thursday! I never hit people on Thursday. Otherwise I would have kicked his ass from here to Badin!’

‘But you know what?’ continued Ayhan, sipping carefully, ‘I told him to his face that I would have him arrested! He has no idea about the power I can exercise.’

He noticed there was something wrong with the tea, but the adventure today was pressing upon his mind, waiting to be let out, like a strong breeze hammering on a broken door.

‘How on earth can you get him arrested? Isn’t he your boss, and therefore more influential than you?’ asked Fahd.

‘You private citizens don’t understand the inner workings of the Government of Pakistan!’, Ayhan swore angrily, ‘His great uncle from his mother’s side passed away last year in the same university hospital from which my cousin’s wife graduated! This same great uncle suggested to him many years ago to join the government! Therefore I know this man exerted great influence on my boss. I will ask my cousin to speak to my boss, and intimidate him!’

Ayhan grinned a sinister grin, the grin of a man who has it all worked out secretly, and is now patiently waiting for the right time to strike.

‘Ok’, said Fahd. He knew well enough it was useless arguing with Ayhan.

‘By the way,’ said Ayhan, ‘can I stay here tonight?’

‘Sure,’ said Fahd, ‘is everything okay?’

‘Nothing special . . . my boss reported my behaviour to the Police, and now I have a warrant for arrest out against me.’ Ayhan sipped his tea casually, ‘don’t worry, it’s nothing.’

Ayhan didn’t stay the night after all. He found out from a phone call that the Police were not actually after him, it was just a threat his boss had made that Ayhan had taken seriously.

Finally leaving, Ayhan got into the car and waved Fahd goodbye as he turned a corner. He thought to himself how the world mistreated him after his father retired from service, and looked back with a smile at the glory days.

‘I am getting old’, he thought to himself, running his hand through his late-twenties-already-graying hair, ‘I also need to lose weight’.

He turned towards a small kabab roll restaurant to think over how his family was ultimately responsible for his present condition, his wife not letting him diet by cooking bad tasting, low calorie foods. That forced him to eat out more. Yes, it was all her fault, he thought as he munched his way into two meat-and-cheese rolls. He was getting full and sleepy already. He looked forward to a good night’s rest. He would see to his boss’s dismissal from service and public shame tomorrow.

CHAPTER 5: FAISAL AT NIGHT

Faisal turned off the TV in the spacious and tastefully decorated lounge in the upper portion of his parents house. He was upset again. He had come home to find that nothing had changed. Why couldn’t there by any change in his life, he wondered? People, he decided were too stupid to change, and he was not yet in control enough to change them. He was bored. He removed himself from the couch and walked into his room. He sat down in front of his computer and turned it on. He was downloading a number of episodes from popular TV shows and movies from a torrent website. He enjoyed downloading pirated software and films. He had an unlimited Internet connection and had proudly declared in front of his friends on more than one occasion that he downloaded more in one month that most regular Internet users did their entire lives! This made him happy. He was the greatest downloader in history. Scratch that. The greatest strategic downloader. His wife walked into the room. The sweet girl was pregnant with Faisal’s second at the the time. Faisal looked at her with distaste, and she shot him a dirty look back.

‘Do you want anything to eat?’, asked Faisal’s wife.

‘No.’ Faisal said, curtly.

‘Let me know when you do.’

‘CAN’T YOU SEE HOW BUSY I AM?’, yelled Faisal, ‘HOW DO YOU PEOPLE EXPECT ME TO WORK IN THESE CONDITIONS?’

‘OK’, she simply said, preparing to sleep.

Faisal got back to his downloading. There was two new shows on his favourite torrent website, and he wanted to try them both. He checked the Internet Movie Database website to find more information on the shows. One was a mystery thriller involving a young, handsome, and witty former convict and his incidental liaison with a beautiful, tough-as-nails woman detective. The show followed a simple storyline about the cases the detective solved, and where ever she was stuck, the convict helped with his personal knowledge of criminal activity. The overarching plot also subtly hinted at a brewing romance between the unlikely pair.

The second show was about the paranormal adventures of a group of students, who had all faced tragic visitations from hellish demons when they were children. Led by a tragic hero, who was also incidentally the quarterback of their colleges football team, they balanced their secret life of demon-fighting with a normal life at school, involving romance, family feuds and the like.

Faisal could relate to them both. He was convinced that he had been visited by ghosts, demons and perhaps even the Devil himself on more than one occasion. He had bravely fought them off with his mind-power, and command over occult practices, which he had learnt through free websites online. He had, no doubt, seen things his peers could not understand. His experiences had made him superior, and he was one step closer to the world acknowledging his superiority.

He turned his computer off, and looked at his wife. She was lying on the bed with her back to him. For a split second, his glance softened, and he lowered his eyes in guilt. He thought about his parents, and how they were putting up with even the most ridiculous of his tantrums. He had thought he was smart, when he decided not to work. Turned out, at thirty-one, staying at home all day while his friends achieved professional success was not a good feeling at all. He thought about what his children would say when they grew up? What would he tell them? What kind of example would he be?

He looked at his wife again. She was a wonderful woman for putting up with him and his mood swings. He had nothing else to hold on to, except the love that his family gave him. He felt the only way to continue getting this love was to appear angry and dissatisfied with everything. His wife would then be under his control, and his parents would not have unnecessary expectations of him, such as making something of himself. He sighed.

Chapter 6: Fahd At Night

Fahd, on the other hand, had always had trouble sleeping. Ever since he was a child, he felt it difficult sleeping at night. His parents had tried for many years but gave up when they saw it was not working. They hated young men who were punks. These young men of today, they used to discuss, they will learn their lesson. They abandoned him to hopelessness. He was four at the time. That night, however, he looked lovingly at his nightly companion.

‘I love you’, he said to the bottle of capsules.

Xanax was his favourite drug. It helped him sleep. It was his best friend. He loved Xanax.

‘I love you, Xanax’, he said.

He carefully broke off one half of the tablet, because he knew Xanax was addictive, and he was smart enough not to get addicted. Little did he know that he was already addicted, and never stopped to think about why he kept needing it to sleep in then first place. To be honest, he hadn’t always been dependant on the drug. When his wife left, his situation was exasperated beyond his control. Sleepless nights he could handle, sleepless and depressing was not his piece of cake. He missed her terribly, and some nights he couldn’t take it. Also, he had spent all his money and the month hadn’t even seen its noon. Trouble was he had just seen something without which he could not live. It was imperative that he purchase a handheld video camera. How could he live without it? His dream of becoming a photo journalist could not be achieved without it. But since this was one of many dreams that he saw during meeting with his boss, he decided to shelve it for a while.

Fahd started roaming around his house, naked. He had a cigarette in his hand, as usual, half smoked. He decided to put on a movie. For the next half hour he went through all the films he had on DVD, that he had purchased but never gotten around to see. In the end, he couldn’t decide between five or six titles. Also, he felt it was too late to watch a movie, but too early to sleep. It was only two am in the morning. He felt irritated at his clock. Why was it two? Why couldn’t it still be ten? Then he realised he had work the next day.

‘I cannot go. . . I am depressed. ‘, he thought to himself, ‘. . . also, how will I drive under the influence of Xanax? Is my life more important or my job?’

He decided to go online. Facebook as usual was dry. One would think with close to a hundred friends, at least one would write something. But no one ever did. They all probably thought Fahd was too intense, self absorbed, or selfish. Also, all he talked about was his troubles. He was a Faisal bhai, except no one was interested in Fahd’s personal life. At least some people were interested in Faisal’s banters.

Fahd decided to call up his friends, but they must all have been asleep. Except for Wazir, who was also an insomniac. At least Fahd accepted that he couldn’t sleep. Wazir never did. He actually thought that he always slept on time. On time for Wazir meant four in the morning. Morning for him, was when the birds decided to call it a day. By the time Wazir usually woke up, other people were heading home for dinner.

Fahd decided he would check his Facebook again. He turned his computer on, and Lo and Behold! An email alert popped up from his Gmail account in Thunderbird, the email client he usually used. It was titled ‘Re: Book’. The sender was Mahreen Aziz Khan, a journalist he had contact from work.

Fahd had noticed Mahreen when he had read her article in the web edition of the Tribune, a recently launched local newspaper. It was bright and colourful, and associated with the International Herald Tribune. Fahd had decided he liked this newspaper, and read it everyday. The web edition was good, because he didn’t have to move from his seat. He didn’t even have to turn the pages while he read it.

He had already met her at a small coffee shop near his house. She turned out to be nothing like the pretty picture she had posted next to her article. In reality she was a forty-something old ex-pat spinster who wanted to write about her experiences while growing up in an affluent suburban home in the richest part of London. In essence her book was to be about the tragic, life of a misunderstood young woman who reads for the bar at Lincoln and proceeds to Harvard, eventually leading a successful career while enjoying her parents money. Fahd often wished he was that unfortunate. And she was right. To be honest, no one actually understood her problem.

‘I want my book in the Oprah Book Club!’ she declared, with a pout. Fahd was actually afraid of a tantrum right there in the coffee shop. Naturally, being a good editor, he agreed and made her feel that the Oprah Book Club was actually be an insult to her book. He then asked for half his fee upfront. He never heard from her again.

Fahd then once again turned off his computer and lay on his bed. He adjusted his bedsheets to remove as many wrinkles he could, but noticed that in order for him to clear the bed sheet of wrinkles altogether, he would have to get off the bed. He didn’t want to do that. He turned on his TV, and watched till he fell asleep.

Around five in the morning he awoke. He had had a bad dream again. He had suffered from nightmares all of last week, and that had irritated him. The ultra-realistic dreams about being stuck in a house invaded by murderous ghosts had been scary the first night, with him waking up in a cold sweat and turning the light on in a panic. The second night, it was exciting. You see, Fahd was one of those people who had no problem being in control of his dreams. Except for only once when he was a child, when he saw a series of dreams in which he was falling. That too he eventually controlled, when he realised it was a dream, and started to fly. It was an enjoyable experience, but he definitely remembered not knowing how to land, and that made him fall again. In all the six or seven times he had that dream, he could never once remember how to land. He fell every time. Dreams, he figured, had a way of exerting themselves irrespective of whether you thought yourself smart enough to control them or not.

As soon as he awoke he heard the distant melodious, haunting sound of the azan. the Muslim call to prayer. The mosque wasn’t too far away from his apartment, and the morning silence lent itself to the invitation to absolution. Fahd got out of bed regretfully. Like most of the young, elite, Muslim men and women of Pakistan, he rarely prayed. Only two things could make him take out the prayer mat. Either there was some trouble in his life that made him remember that turning to God was a possible solution, or he felt guilty that he was a Muslim and was not fulfilling his obligation to faith. Unfortunately, neither of the two were long lasting, and usually the period of hardship either went away or Fahd got used to it. The guilt part on the other hand, was becoming something of a habit for Fahd. He had started praying more regularly since his wife had left. Perhaps it had something to do with that. Who knew these matters of faith? They were like a soliloquy of an actor on stage, with no one in the audience. One never knows true faith, it is an elusive concept. Therefore we look to others to see what they are doing. Key word doing, not believing. Without the confidence of being socially accurate, faith for the youth of Pakistan is a fortune based event.

Fahd walked out on his balcony. The sun was peeking over the horizon, its mutilated golden beams bruised purple from the effort. Instead of making the sky brighter, the ushering lights seemed to make it darker. The contrast had created a beautiful kaleidoscope of colours in the world. At least what little of the world was visible from Fahd’s second floor balcony. The streets were empty, and the passing birds were complaining about the day’s toil ahead. A few pedestrians quickly scrambled to wherever they were going. Most of these were hard working labourers going to construction sites for work, which for them started as early as the sun. Fahd sighed. It was rare to be content. With all that was going on his life, this silence meant he was alone. No demands from his friends and family, no questions from his students, and certainly no bills. He often dreamt of escaping to a retreat somewhere in Europe, where no one knew him. With this international terrorist threat that was sensationalising the media those days, people in that part of the world would probably be too scared of him to be friendly. He would be happy. Then he realised he had no money to travel. He decided, as he walked back towards his bed, that he would start saving from that day onwards. With that thought in mind, he peacefully wandered off to sleep, conveniently forgetting to pray.