Love #34: Abdulmajid

 

Earlier he had met a flower seller at the markets.  He saw her standing on the sand by the western wall.

The flower seller stood just out of the sun, her flowers arrayed in front of her.  Elderly, yet happy in the warmth of the morning.  She saw him.  Looking at her wares.  

She called Abdulmajid over.  He asked her price.  She fell into the easy rhythm of question and response.  What were these flowers?  How should they be kept.  How much would she take.

Question and answer: anticipated or unexpected.  A dialogue, a pattern: in looks - a shrug - a question an answer.  An action - a response.

And yet with love, and violence, action and response become merged. But in abandonment – simply loss.  The agony of violence without the immediacy of the touch of a knife, the slap of a wrist, the smashing of glass, a candle flame extinguished.  The agony of love, now left.  The questions left unanswered.  The looks left unwatched. The shrugs forgotten.  The descent into self.

In this melody, Abdulmajid hears a question followed by an answer.  As experience builds on experience, he hears variations on the questions: and growing nuances in the responses.  A beautiful complexity evolving: a sharing that anticipates reunion.

He thought: "Within the schema of our lives, such basic patterns are framed on shifting sands.  Maybe there need be no reason for anything other than the joy of living."

Copyright Dark Aelf, 2021 

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