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So What?!
(Episode 1)
Faris was sleeping deeply under his dark blue silky sheets. He loved the feeling of being warm and cozy while sleeping and escaping from his, according to him, a life with no excitement. He felt that his life is the plain, average life of a normal, average guy.
Faris thought of himself as a guy with passion, strength, personality, and uniqueness that he should not only live as a 22 year old, English major student. His choice of majoring in English may be because of his interest in the western action and crime movies he used to watch since he was a kid. The bangs of guns, the tough personalities of the characters, and the masculine words coming out from gangsters and war heroes all created a sense of craving for excitement in him.
He was not pleased with his life of ordinariness, going to classes, studying, meeting normal people at normal places. He would prefer a life of action but risks, rather than a normal life with safety.
As he slept, with his dark brown eyes closed, not using them to look at the ordinary things in life, he used his imagination as his eyes while he slept. While he slept every day, he looked at a different life, not only that, but living it in his internal world to escape the external world, a life of action, passion, schemes, wicked planes, risks, and even blood. This didn’t mean that he was a bad guy, he was the nicest guy a person can be, but in the same time, he was a bad guy, in a good way. Faris believed in being bad to fight the bad. He had the idea that bad guys should be treated as they treated others. If bad guys were using schemes to win, schemes should be used to get them. If bad guys were using violence to survive, violence should be used in order not to let them survive.
His dreams while he slept could be high rated movies, with characters that are so cruel that they should be called the devil's friends. Sometimes he was the hero of his movies, grabbing the throats of bad guys and teaching them that goodness shall prevail. In other dreams he was not the main character, he was the secondary character with effect, the one who observes but makes a difference in the same time, like playing the character of a friend of the main character that gives him advice, or a doorman who helps a woman in distress next to the entrance of the building.
His I-phone rings. A normal and average ringtone, riiiiiing riiiiiiing. He doesn’t answer. His phone rings again, he ignores. When it rang the third time, he expected that it must have been something important. It should have been, however when he glanced at the screen of his I-phone, he saw a name he knew very well, a name he knew very well that he knew that there was a fifty percent chance that the issue this person had was something stupid.Faris picked up the phone.
"Mazen, you stupid, dumb, silly, annoying maniac?" Faris answering angrily and jokingly at the same time. He used to talk like this with his closest friends, again, influenced by crime movies. "You call me at this time, 7 am in a Friday, and wake me up you cow! Really! You better have something interesting to tell me"
Mazen laughed and knew Faris didn’t mean that. "Hahahahaha, come one, I know you love me," Faris considered Mazen like his brother. "I want to talk to you bro, now. Wake up and stop being lazy like a pregnant woman, and take a shower, clean yourself, put some cloths on and meet me now!"
"You wanna meet me? So what? Ooooohooooooo, you did something stupid?? Again?! What did you do this time. Akeed you did something so stupid that you wake me up although I hate somebody waking me up…"Faris said.
Mazen insisted more, "Faroooos, don’t act as if you are Sharlock Holms ok, if you don’t come, believe me, I will come now and take you out of bed using my grandpa's stick."
"Wow! It seems something really important that you talk to me like that! Zaaaaaaaaaain, at the usuall place?" Faris asked.
"Yeah." Mazen answered.
Faris got off his bed, stretched his body, and thought in his mind that Mazen was kind of upset. Mazen didn’t get angry easily. One time Faris pured pepper sauce in his coffee and Mazen was cool. Another time Faris posted a video of him snoring while sleeping on the internet, and still, Mazen was cool. Mazen was cool with everything. Although Faris and Mazen were similar to each other in terms of taste in clothes and music, they differed in the coolness. Faris got angry if he thought that he was disrespected, this didn’t mean that he could not handle a prank or a joke, but if he felt that somebody is trying to push him around, he would show him that Faris was a man of respect, and he deserved respect.
He went immediately under the shower. To save time, he brushed his teeth under the shower, moving the toothbrush quickly besides his teeth. But although he was in a hurry, not wanting to be late coz Mazen would use this against him in the future, and because Faris liked to be always on time, he finds himself under the shower, just thinking, observing his life, imagining, would this day be good? Or another stupid and boring day. Is this day another ordinary day? Can Mazens "big issue" cause something exciting to happen? Will this day have something to offer? Something with action?
While he was soaping himself, the soap fell. "Damn it!" Faris complained to himself. He picked it up, struggled with it because of its slipperiness, and then realized that he was running out of time. He held the shower with his hand and just moved it against his body, it took like 15 seconds. He took the towel and went in front of the mirror.
"I look goooooooooooooooooooooooooooood." He said to himself, smiling with arrogance. "But so what?!" he thought to himself. Looking good for what? For something interesting? For people who are interesting? So what If he looks good?! So what if he feels good? He will return to his disappointment of his day's events when this day ends.
He didn’t know what to wear. His closet had the usual colors he always wore. Dark brown, navy, gray, dark green, and his favorite, Black. He didn’t think a lot about what pair of jeans he should wear, because he had three paisr that he usually wore, he wore his black jeans, but again he remembered that he should not be late. The best solution is not to think and just pick up his favorite black t-shirt, his favorite black leather jacket, and then he wore his black socks and black leather boots and left his room towards his home's entrance, towards his car.
Faris runned the engine of his 2010 black Jeep Wrangler. Listening to "The loner" by Gary moore on his way to meet Mazen. He was to meet him in the coffee shop where they often met. A cozy place, not to crowded, not to calm. It takes around 15 minutes to arrive from his house to the coffee shop.
He entered the place. It was quite crowded. He ordered his espresso by just looking at waiter, who knew his usual drink. He walked towards the usual table that he and Mazen sat on. As he was walking he noticed three girls studying, with one of them tutoring the others. He glanced at two guys wearing casual cloths and laughing on the video they were watching on an I-pad.
He sat in front of Mazen, facing him, and said, "Hey dumb boy!" Faris greeted Mazen.
"Is somebody dead?! You coming here wearing all black, looking like a broke gangster!" Mazen said.
"You drag me here at 8 am and want me to solve another stupid thing you did…AGAIN?!" Faris said.
"Haha, why do you think I did something stupid, why do you always assume the worst?!" Mazen said
"I know you too well bro…what happened? You had a stupid car accident? You hit on a girl that slapped you on the face? You spilled some coffee on you manager at the stupid company you work at? What? " Faris said.
"Nothing happened!!!!" Mazen said
Faris gave him that usual look he give him, the "Come on!!!" look.
"Allright….offffff…you know me to well….between me and you haa…." Mazen said
Faris just nodded…
"I didn’t sleep last night…" Mazen said.
"Why? Are you in love or something? I can't imagine you falling in love. She must be one unlucky girl!" Faris said jokingly.
"You know I'm not stupid to do that." Mazen said as if love is something he does, rather than something he feels.
Mazen carries on, "I just couldn’t sleep. You know that I get stupid insomnia from time to time, so when the sun rose, I decided to come here and chill. I was bored."
"Chill ha?! You like to chill ha? Ok ok chilling man. Tell me what's wrong?" Faris inquired while he received his expresso he ordered and thanked the waiter with a nod.
"I could handle anything, but a girl calling me a blind clown…..ughhhhhh…. this is something I couldn’t handle." Mazen complained.
"Hahahahahaha, who called you that? You kinda look like a clown by the way haha." Faris joked.
"Bro I'm serious, I wanted to talk to somebody about this. I feel humiliated!" Mazen said.
Faris said his usual phrase, "So what?!"
Faris believed that the phrase "So what?" could make him feel better anytime. If he got late to a flight, "So what? If he failed in an exam, "So what?" If he had a car accident, "So what?" This phrase calmed him down, except in one single situation, if somebody didn’t show him respect.
Faris continued, "So what if she called you a blind clown, and why did she say that by the way?"
Mazen exaplained why, "When I was going back to my table, coming from the bathroom, I accidentally ran to her, her books fell. I tried to help her with picking them up. I was trying to be polite and I even apologized, but she was that kind of girl you wanna slap on the face!"
Faris wanted to calm him down, "So what?! Many girls are mean, thinking that every guy is trying to bother her. Just forget about it."
Mazen looked at him with slight anger, "Look who'se talking!! a guy who would get back at a girl treating him like that, he would not care if she was a girl! You tell me to forget about it?!"
"Mazen, you are not me, and I would consider the fact that she is a girl. I know that it is a 'manhood' thing. No man can handle a girl talking to him like that, it's not sexist or something, it's just that usually men are like that. But trust me, forget about it." Faris said.
"But I can't…" Mazen whispered to him.
"Why?!" Faris asked
"Coz she's here!" Mazen answered.
"Intrestiiiiiiiiiiiiiing!!!!!!!!!." Faris considered this an opportunity to make this day exciting. " Where?"
Mazen pointed with his eyes at the three girls studying, "The girl with glasses, the one who looks like a feminist Paris Hilton."
"You want her to suffer the way you are suffering?" Faris suggested to Mazen with a sense of humor and seriousness at the same time.
"Who are you?! the godfather? But yeah, I guess so…" Mazen said.
"No problem." Faris said this, rose from his chair and started to walk towards the group of girls.
"Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaait you jerk." Mazen said whispering.
Faris ignored him. He walked towards the girl with a mean smile. He felt his heart pounding, but it was like exercising his heart, preparing it for possible future exciting situations, but he appeared calm in the same time. Here comes the action, something different, something which he may regret, but love to remember as a memory of excitement, action and adrenaline.
As Faris reached at the table of girls. He stared at the girl with glasses, ignoring the rest of the girls, and said, "Hey you…."
The girl looked at him with a mean face that says "get lost." And said, "What do you want?"
To be continued ......
