She had sound-proofed the record room so that her husband could sleep. I assumed her attendance at the party and her enormous abode had meant she was the lawyer. She wasn’t. Her husband was. That was why she was available to have lunch. That was why she never abruptly left to finish her errands. There weren’t any.

So why was she interested in me? Maybe she was bored. Maybe she was one of those harpies my dad had told me about who lingered about law schools looking for rich husbands and then spent the days spending their money and sleeping with television repairmen. Maybe she had hopes and dreams that were put on the back burner while she tried to start a family and was trying to rekindle her lost ambitions with me. Maybe the story about her husband being a politician was true, only she’d never divorced him. The trouble with that was I didn’t recognize the man. Perhaps he had failed in politics but managed to make a killing on consultation contracts and she simply wanted to start again with someone else, someone more “powerful”. There were many explanations, none of them particularly flattering.

I can’t really explain why I was so upset. After all, I was hardly the one to take the moral high ground when it came to dishonesty. Then again, why is it thieves that always work the hardest to secure their belongings? Why is it that murderers always spent most of their time looking over their shoulders? Why do hunters fear being hunted? It takes one to know one.

Maybe I had always been living in a fantasy world where I would make the “big reveal” and Claudine would tell me she still loved me no matter what and my parents would be forced to accept me and I would made an honorary member of a society I felt no acquaintance to. Instead, my secrets had remained just that. I had washed the grey from my hair and waxed the scratch from Roberto’s car. I had walked away from his house after that weekend a “changed man” and never skipped class again. Everything remained the same. I was the only one that knew the truth and somehow that was a million times worse.

I invited Farah over to my house for reconciliation. She left her home on some pretense and came to mine. I wasn’t the only one who manipulated truth for my own gain.           She wandered my room for a few minutes, neither of us really quite ready to talk. She noticed an old poster I had in my room from a Student’s Union Presidential campaign back when the earth was young. I was dressed as a gladiator and waving a sword in the air that my father claimed was a family heirloom dating back to ancient Roman times. The caption beneath read: Beni the Brave, Beni the Bold, Beni the President! We both smiled, remembering happier times.

“Do you still think back to the times when you so desperately wanted to be the Prime Minister, Beni?” Farah asked.

            “Those times never changed,” I replied.

            “No, but you did.”     

            “What do you mean?”

            “Maybe there was a time when you could have taken other’s advice, when you could have made a leader out of yourself, but that time has gone, Beni. It’s not just a legend. You do have Nero’s blood in your veins. You can’t admit to your mistakes. You can’t believe that you are flawed. In the mirror you see a God, not a man.” She pointed to the poster. “That is a despot, not a leader, Beni.”

            “But I’m trying,” I begged. “This is what I’m doing now. I’m surrendering. You were right, Farah. You were right. I’m such a freaking idiot. I know that now. I was wrong, God damn it. I was wrong!”

            “And what good is that now?” Farah questioned, malevolent and vindictive. “Do you not realize the people you’ve hurt with your lies?”

            “What?” I asked, confused.

            “You told me Maria stood you up. That wasn’t true, was it?”

            I shook my head, ashamed.

            “Well, others didn’t quite see through you like I did. Rumours became fact and fact became merciless.”

            “I didn’t tell anyone other than you.”

            “You didn’t have to. Someone’s friend of a friend of a friend heard something and it spread like wildfire through the dried prairies, Beni. Truths remain constant; lies escalate. Now she’s not just someone who will abandon you on the street, she’s a secret slut, unable to enjoy the finer points of life because of the filth of her soul.”

            “I’m certain they don’t actually say that.”    

            “I’m paraphrasing!” Farah yelled at me. “The point is, whether or not you apologize for them, your words have consequences. Whether or not you admit they are wrong and regardless of when that admittance comes, real people get hurt from what you say and do. If you want to be a leader and not just a dictator, hell, let’s throw that aside for a minute … if you want to be a man and not a monster you need to think of the consequences before you act, Beni.”

            I couldn’t take it. I just wanted a confessor. I just wanted her to tell what I had to do to get her friendship back and then my sins would wash away. I didn’t want to be scolded. I wanted to be forgiven. I wanted to be loved.

            I fell and wrapped my arms around her, crying into her shoulder. Emotions came running out of me like steam from a geyser. I tried to make words, but nothing came out. I tried to make sounds, but my throat seized up. I tried to make a connection but her heart was already stone.

            I tried to kiss her and she slapped me. Her face was full of disgust and pity. Her hijab was soaked with my tears. She ripped it off, preferring hell to my stench. She burst from my room with the swiftness of Hermes and the anger of his under-dwelling uncle.

            I sat alone on my bed. I no longer felt despair. I no longer felt desperation. I no longer felt despondent. I felt nothing. My mind started building the world into the place it really was, that nightmarish prison of human hatred and lust. The stories were burning; reality prevailed. Jenkins, the partner my Dad would join with was actually Claudine’s husband. Farah had chosen Kevin over me. The world was going to be consumed with riots over food, tides and hurricanes from global warming and wars over nothing more than mistaken gestures. That bald kid had cancer.

            I couldn’t have cared less.

            I began to methodically destroy everything I saw around me. The rage of thousand generations of Mussinis chained and Mussinis chaining came back to me with the force of a thousand ton train on a downhill track. Nothing escaped my wrath except one piece of paper. It was a love poem I found that my father had written for my mother so long ago.

It’s true that mountains inspire cultures galore,

And rivers and valleys make followers adore.

I know that treetops burst to heavens, so proud.

As does the thunder, magnificent and loud.

But the most lovely of waters or nature pristine,

Could not equal your beauty, my darling Christine.

I looked about the wasteland that I had created of my room. Bookcases were crushed. My bed overturned. Furniture looked more set for a bonfire than an easy chair. I sank into the corner and witnessed the destruction I’d caused. It was my truth made of lies. I was alone.

I would always be alone.