As he moved his mouse pointer to the right column of the Facebook screen to delete all the requests like he usually does, he couldn’t help but notice an application for A Perfect Life.
How perfect is your life?, it asked.

His ground shook… then a volcano erupted… and everything he ever knew burst into flames. He felt himself deteriorating, like his own reflection melting by a funny mirror that ain’t so funny.
His solid existence melted back to his original liquid state and he found himself swimming against time back to the day when things were different.

Today, our Pepsi ads show old football coaches sipping the dark soda. So much for health. No wonder we suck at sports, he thought. We’re old news. No one buys products as a result of celebrity pressure anymore, but we don’t know that yet. We’re still stuck at a black hole, only we don’t know that all of this isn’t real. As a consumer, you should go for a drink that doesn’t kill you. You want to buy meat only you fear avian flu, mad cow disease, and fish mercury. You want to drink mineral water only you fear the rot.
Has natural selection, finally taken their side?

He then took a sip of his transparent fluid, swallowed carefully and hoped to live. Then his mind surfed off to his elsewhere. She was there. He spitefully stared back.
Why is he there again, he wondered. He knew that relationships weren’t easy. Why is he even trying? They’re like the Olympics, a game, a rodeo. You never know what to do, who to be. Sometimes you wanna be the bull, at other times the rider.
At the end of the day, you’re just the rodeo clown, sitting back, trying to make the best out of it. Nevertheless, it is all one game… and if you fall you’ll get hurt.

It’s scary how everyone changes when they’re romantically involved.
Sometimes, he clichéd to himself it’s not her, it’s probably me.
But like well written screenplays, no matter how many twists and hints they throw into the picture, the truth is never revealed.
He always sucked at politics; be it work, friendship, or dating politics. It was like he was sick the day they taught that at school.
Life does not have neon arrows to point for the right direction in the dark. It’s called the dark for a reason. Everything has to be blurted out spontaneously if you’re ever going to beat time.
Blurt it out and pray for the best… like that fucking rodeo clown.

Sometimes, he blamed it on inaccurate religious standards, westernized “open minded” upbringings, the fear of security, the hope for something better down the road. Everyone becomes selfish, insecure. Everything falls under one deadly shade. He’d wait for birthdays and anniversaries to find an excuse for the two of them to smile together.
They could be lying in the same bed, but would they share the same dream? The ability to dream together falls somewhere between common understanding and the will to make it work. It was like there’s a border separating the two of them… and all it takes is one step forward, a step that no one cares to make.
Distortion… such a tricky word.

He wondered if he’d rather trade his loneliness with it all. He wondered if she’d listen, understand, sacrifice.
He wondered if it was ok that he’s experienced different sets of relationships in a short while; whether it made him more experienced to avoid that same mistake… or more afraid to get involved.

At the end, the eternal question remained…
If the Mongols had won that battle, if Andalusia was never lost, if dinosaurs still roamed the Earth, if America was never discovered, if the Earth was still supposedly flat, if the Arabs had won in ‘48, if he hadn’t caught that train, if he never loved her…
If he never ate that apple…
If he was never born…
Would things be fucking better?

Sometimes he feared that in that pursuit of happiness… at the end of the road… after all the hard work, sacrifice, and faith… that all he’d find is… exhaustion.

He ignored the Facebook invitation and reset his notifications and requests back to his familiar zero.
Everything is back to normal.

So much for the perfect life.

الحمدلله