Author: Khalid LAHLOU.

Everyone looks for stability: social, financial and, above all, psychological stability. The older a person gets, the more urge for stability is nurtured.
I know a good friend of mine who hankers after stability. The term stability for him is intimately related to marriage. So our friend wants to get married to achieve stability. I never want to argue with him the real meaning of what he describes as stability. Anyway, he wants to get married. He has known more than one girl. I tell him that he must be lucky enough to get to know such a big number of girls.

-I don’t trust any of them.
-Why not?
-Well, simply because they’re unworthy of my trust.
-But, you didn’t answer my question, why you don’t trust them?
-She is with you now and the following day she can be with someone else.
-I don’t think that all girls are like that.
-I didn’t say all of them are like that, but most of them can easily betray you.
-That’s sad, isn’t it?
-Sad? You’re joking. That’s killing. Can you imagine yourself desperately in love with a girl you consider to be everything in your life betraying you with your closest friend? What would you do in this case?
-I don’t know. I really don’t know.
-I do.
-What?
-I would feel doubly wronged.
-Why should you?
-Because I don’t want to be doubly wronged.

This is my usual conversation with him. He does not want to be “doubly wronged”. This seems mysterious to me.
He is in his early thirties, but looks younger than his real age. He is all the time smiling and taking life with ease. Whenever he starts pouring his heart to me, I feel a kind of sympathy for him. His way of talking inspires empathy and compassion.

I still remember him coming to me one day while I was sitting in a café sipping my tea. He was looking sad. That was one of the rarest moments that I had seen him look so low-spirited. I did not want to inquire. He, in turn, did not make any encouraging sign for me to inquire. I invited him to have a seat and, without taking his opinion, ordered a cup of coffee for him. He enormously appreciated this act of true friendship. He sat down without uttering any single word. Some minutes later, and with no introduction whatsoever, he broke the silence.

I still can remember when I was young – very young – a girl told me “I wonder if you could get a girl friend; and if ever you got one, who would this wretched be!” I can still hear her very voice. I didn’t pay attention to her in the beginning. But as time went by, I found her prophesy on the verge of being actualised.

I know him when he was still very young. We have grown up together. As a young boy, he was very active and lively. He still is, though. But the liveliness of boyhood is not the same as when one grows up. Anyway, he was so active that he was liked by most of his cronies. He was not good-looking, to be honest. But he had charm. Girls did discover his charm only late; an irony of fate, in a way.
One day I went with a friend of mine to his girl friend’s school. When he saw her, he went to talk to her. She saw me. She reluctantly and astonishingly asked him if I, in my term, was waiting for any girl. I deduced from her astonishment that she couldn’t imagine that I might have a girl friend. He answered her- my friend, that is- firmly that I was. He lied. This is the second time that I heard such an insult from them, girls. This made me furious. I swore I would settle my account with them if any occasion presented itself.
In fact before he told me his ‘top secrets’, I have always noticed that he retains some disgust for the other sex. But he tries to hide it.
I didn’t really know why both of them said that I couldn’t have a girlfriend. Possibly I wasn’t good-looking. That is not a reason- but why? I kept on asking myself over and over again. I found no answer.

I still remember him coming to me on a previous occasion and saying that he once had a girlfriend, but he did not continue with her. Something happened that had disenchanted that relationship, but he did not uncover the whole thing to me. A few months later, he told me something that had a strong connection with the aforesaid event.
I was going well with her until one day I discovered that she was going out with a friend of mine.
I was shocked.
I was shocked when I discovered that. I had never thought of that before! She was going out with a friend to whom I used to impart all my secrets. I hated her. I felt a sense of humiliation. Why did she do that? I couldn’t find any answer.
No matter how hard had I tried to calm him down, he wouldn’t calm down. He was nervous.
I tried to forget her. It has taken me ages to forget what she had done to me, because that was my first experience with the other sex. I was still young but I loved her dearly. From then on, I took it upon myself to take my revenge. And I solemnly swore I would carry out my plans.
I know very well that if he says something, he will surely do it. I know very well that he had succeeded in making more than one relationship with more than one girl. He left them after he was sure they had fallen in love with him. His pleasure- endless and utter pleasure- was when he would come to me and explain how happy he was when he discovered that a girl had fallen in love with him and how cruelly he treated her. He would relate that with immeasurable warmth and infinite anxiety.
Poor little thing! Surely he has a heart of gold. It was not his fault, as he keeps on telling me, if he found satisfaction in forsaking the girls who fell in love with him.
From my chat with him, I have come to the conclusion that he does not really know what he wants. Sometimes he comes to me, wholeheartedness, to tell me that he is about to settle down- well to settle down according to his standards!
‘I’m sure that you won’t stay with her more than a month’, one of his closest friends would tell him whenever he brought about a new ‘love story’.
Recently he has gone through a ‘long-lived’ love story with a girl. Honestly, she loved him- may be she still does. He has stayed with her for a period of four or five months.
‘That’s a long period, isn’t it?’ Said the same closest friend mockingly.

About the Author:
An Ex- English Department head, Khalid LAHLOU is presently an associate lecturer, Hassan II University,Faculty of Letters, Ben M’sik, Casablanca, Morocco. He has published online a couple of short stories. He enjoys writing and reading. He likes to travel a lot. This gives him some inspiration for literary production.



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