Pervade and Faint

Chapter 5

Gradual absorption
I would consequently pay visits to Sophia, in order to improve my Urdu, but only for about twenty minutes. Basically before her dad came home, because she really feared her dad, for I didn't know what reason. She just never wanted to talk about that.
I was getting better and better at Urdu. On the other hand, Sophia needed a hand in English. She found the plays quite complicated. I helped her. She taught me how to interpret the (Urdu poetry) poetry, because I found that complicated. It wasn't that hard. Tedious, although. A bit mastery of the language was required. I helped Sophia in English, and was getting the highest grades in English. The guy who threw my books on my first day (Sameer) was actually my competent in English. His mother was a remarkable professor in England. She used to come to the college, but very sporadically. Sameer was actually pretty intelligent. But pride dropped from him as water leaking from a sponge. Dad was taking hold of the duty of dropping me off and picking me from college.

Sophia was getting more coherent with me as time passed by. However, she never really looked at me, directly. Our eyes never met for more than a few seconds. And even those few seconds were the best moments of my life. She only looked at me surreptitiously. Recalling, I loved it. She always kept a curtain of privacy between us. We shared a lot with each other, but nothing much personal. I never told her that I liked her, and neither did she instigate the refurbishment of our road, which I knew wouldn't take long. I wanted to spend more and more time with her. But our exams were drawing nigh, and I knew that I should have spent more time reading. So I did. But the heart and mind travel on two different paths.

The mind didn't stop studying, and the heart, it just did what it was supposed to do.

The unanticipated incident
I became more conscious ever since the incident, which had occurred a few days beforehand. It was something completely out of my expectations. Since our exams were drawing nigh, I had to wake up till late at night. Therefore, caffeine was a constitutive. I went to a nearby shop to buy some Red Bull. I bought a few cans of Red Bull and another fairly expensive energy drink (Imported from Finland. It was highly effective).

When I was coming back home, I was only half way there, for I got concussed. Something hard slammed my head with sheer force and fury. I fell down and my drinks collapsed to the macadam. A shot of pain traveled from my head to toe. I quickly got back up and got punched in the stomach, but it didn't hurt. At least it hurt less than the punch, which I had received on my head.
"Get out of my place", barked a familiar voice. It was completely dark, so I couldn't see much. The darkness for sure obfuscated my view, but the voice was clear. It was my one and only competent. Sameer.

I felt extremely mad and I wanted vengeance, immediately. Antagonized, I punched him in the stomach and then in the face. He fell to the floor like branch, segregated from a tree during a harsh typhoon. I gave him a few knuckles on the face for a good retaliation. I wiped my knuckles with my pants, while he writhed on the ground. Hastily, I gathered my scattered cans and put them in the bag, which, somehow, didn't tear apart. I saw a stream of blood running from his nose. I never really fought before, which mixed a large amount of guilt in the small amount of pain, which ran in my head.

When I reached home, I still didn't understand why he wanted to fight with me. He used to get really timorous when I got higher grades then him. If it was to compete, why did he want to do it physically? I thought. With a dense medley of agony, anger, guilt and confusion in my mind, I drifted off.

Afterwards
The next day, Sameer became the spectacle of the class. Everyone stared at his black eye and fractured nose. I kind of felt bad for him. I didn't know that a few punches were going to cause so much damage. A few students had asked him what happened. Even a teacher asked. He told everyone that he fell of his motorbike, which was just too much of a lie. I made a vow with myself that I was never going to fight. Struggle, though. It made me feel abysmal. Fighting just demeans a man's personality. There exists no win to a fight. It leads to ignorance and ultimately, mere darkness. I still didn't want to say sorry to him because he was the one who had started it. My grandfather always used to tell me that the strong ones are always first in acts of forgiveness. That's why we have very few strong men.

I sat down with Sophia that day. I didn't tell her that I was the one who hit him because I didn't want her to know that I was such a person, which I wasn't. Something formed a blockade to my tongue after I fought with Sameer. It occluded not only my self dignity, but my innocence and confidence. And I had to extrude that's abstruse feeling. It was to be eradicated from a proper consult. And I knew exactly where I could have received that.

Double Anxiety
That day, I went to Sophia's house after supper. I had to release my anxiety by telling Sophia everything. But there was also a separate anxiety as I entered her house. As usual, she was ensconced in her swing. I sat next to her, with just a few books acting as a border between us. We read for a while. With the double anxieties corroding my interior, I contemplated whether I should release the burden of my tongue or not. But when it came to Sophia, I couldn't think much of contemplation. I finally spoke
"Did you see Sameer today?"

She squinted and thought for a moment. "Yeah I did. Wrecked up face right", she said and nodded. I took a short breath. "I did it" I said, a bit too quickly. She squinted again and looked at me, vexed and terrified.
"What! Are...but why?" she said.
"And that's exactly what I'm anxious to know. Why?"

I told her everything. She listened attentively, sans interruption. She flinched when I mentioned myself getting punched, which stimulated double sided response of sympathies amid us.
"Amir, you don't know the mentality of these people", she said, sadly and sighed.
"Its just", she said but I cut her.

"Ignorance?" I asked, unconsciously and she nodded, absentmindedly. There was something else that she wanted to say. Her mouth opened for a second, then closed all of a sudden. Words were at the edge of her mouth. However, she desisted releasing them. We sat in silence for a while, thoughts, in unison, swiveling in our heads.
"Amir", she said and I lifted my head. My body felt stimulated whenever I heard my name come out of her mouth. "Don't", she said and looked down, as if embarrassed."What"? I asked. She still didn't look up.

"Don't ...ever...fight again", she said and lifted her head. There were tears in her eyes. Her strained face added verisimilitude to her generosity and concern. She held her gaze, marginally longer. A tear hit her soft cheek when she blinked. To be very honest, it was very hard for me to see tears in her eyes. But candid interior responses are merely spontaneous.
" I won't", I promised and I swore that I would never fight again. I was expecting that my grief and anxiety would release after consulting with Sophia. It probably even did. But every exhaled breath is inhaled by another. My anxiety, which I had released, embedded in Sophia. She took it seriously. I promised her not to fight again. But that didn't console her. There were yet strands of fear in her, which, I knew, were to stay permanent. The grief of my fight seemed to hit her more with a tremendous force. And when a grief attaches itself with a woman, nearly nothing in the world can detach it.