Berries for Summer.
By: Ziad Al Nahas
Tags: Summer, Relationships, Regret, Fuckboys, Love

This is a deluded love story. A story of one fruity summer — with a little help from Rumi.

Watermelon June

Being in self-imposed isolation during this quarantine has got my thoughts snowballing. Being at the tiny desk, being in my own head, being sat on a couch, streaming series that play a background sound to my mental narrative do not serve as distractions, merely as settings. To keep it fresh, as summer drew closer and sunscreen became a priority, I started taking longer walks across the urban, busy area my parents happened to buy our house in.

During these walks, I found vials of memories splattered across the streets. It is strange to recognize how objective and ever-lasting streets are. They are merely there. The fact that the army had brutally injured rebels in the same spot you’d once gotten a sloppy blowjob fascinates me. It truly puts things into perspective for me. Most importantly, this summer, I have been thinking about the different possibilities on these streets. What if? What could have been? Why not?

On my walks, I think of one integral summer. Mind you, I am not so sober during these walks and the pills ground into my coffee keep my mind spiralling. I feel like it is time, in this quarantine, for my doubts to be tackled head first, no more escapism, no more metaphorical procrastination. Is it time to be a man? Anyone got a manual on how to be that?

I remember the summer I had spent with her. It was hot in every dimension. She lived close. I was a college student with too much time on His hands. I liked wine. She became the same. I liked witty arguments. She tried her best. I liked binge and excess. She found it in herself to accommodate. I liked the lush and the luxurious. She actually did, too. She was kind and I was not. In drawing a dimensional comparison between us, I see that now.

In my previous opinion, when two people commit, love puts on its Nike Decades and covers itself with a square, purple cloth. I had told her that and was dumb enough to assume that both her and I would control ourselves. It fascinates me sometimes how much like AI bots we are already trying to be, with our objectivity, our emotional defenses and our pragmatic take on relationships. AI is the enemy we are trying to impregnate.

Our summer together started on her kitchen counter. She wore a ridiculous tiger onesie; I was in my douchebag fit. We talked of love, commitment and the families we were blessed with. She cooked some dumb, yoghurt-based lunch. I watched her move across the beige and brown kitchen. She really was not my type, but trying telling that to your hormones. I sat on the counter, she sashayed here and there.

‘Have you ever thought about what your ideal partner would be like?’ I asked, merely curious about everything that had to do with her. I poured a rum & coke as she walked around and took her time to answer.

‘I have an idea. Why do you ask?’ she gave me that smile that she thought was mystique and sexy but which I, held in the silk of my God Complex web, thought I could see right through.

‘I mean,’ I started then laughed, ‘I actually have a list of qualities I want in mine.’

She paused, turned around and said, ‘I do, too.’

‘I have it written down.’ I challenged.

‘You’re a weird guy. Check.’

I laughed then listed the qualities I wanted in my someone and slowly reached the realization that she fit most of them. She was short, though.

‘Well,’ she tried to be nonchalant, ‘I think my guy would have the same qualities.’ Then she remembered and added hastily, ‘I want him to fit well with my family.’

‘Yeah, that matters.’ I croaked.

I guess it started then. Kitchen kitsch talk and sexual tension all around her house. We spent June going to all the bars we could, the clubs that left us sweaty, testing the patience of our deodorant, the restaurants where we’d drink more Rosé than consume solid food. We talked for hours, constantly. We built up a bubble of interest, of curiosity, of incomprehensible trust. And across all of that, I was truly convinced that I did not like her. I am coming to the conclusion that the most persuasive people are those in denial. The abandonment of logic and the fixation on one thought can truly work wonders. Look at me for example, a previously delusional dick with arrogance by the ton.

June was pink, red and white. June was the honeymoon phase. Watermelon on the beach. The smell of coconut oil. The crisp scent of dried hair. The sweet warmth of the cold shower water which strangely makes you feel warmer on the inside after the beach. The aroma of shower gel which we would soon share.

We wanted to make sangrias once, I remember. I am thinking of this as I walk under the house in which these events took place. Told you she lived close. I swallow another pill. So, yeah, we wanted to make sangrias once. I watched as her excitement was mirrored in mine. I realized this event of sangria-making was not about the alcoholic nectar, but about the fact that we would invite all our friends to share it with us at her place. She longed for family, she longed for stable recognition. Unfortunately, she thought that was achievable with me. My condolences.

As we shopped for the items (white rum, red wine, oranges, etc.), I remember we laughed a lot. I accidentally broke the first bottle of rum I picked off the shelf. She ran away as I tried hitting her ass repeatedly with the cart. She threw Kinder eggs at me. We talked about our friends and their inconsistencies. We made fun of the people we saw there: the fed-up mum, the kid with a booger halfway down his lips, the old man tapping a watermelon expecting a response, the father who was on his phone while his daughter tugged at his shirt. I nearly broke another bottle and then she came to me and tugged it from my hand, placing it safely into the cart. She touched my hands frequently. I remember she was quite touchy. I remember liking that. I also remember wondering if that was her sending me messages. I remember liking those messages. And slowly, my perception of her transmuted from mere curiosity and enjoyment to basic attraction, the kind that gets you kind of hard when she walks into the room. It was not about the physical merely. It was about what we shared in that bubble that looked like the inside of a cool watermelon.

What I remember most was that she truly cared about what I thought and what I wanted. She was a girl that cared and gave. She had issues in a bundle, but she cared. When we were buying the stuff for the sangrias, she kept on asking me what I wanted and whether I wanted that or not, but not in the sense that she was asking casually, rather that she was guessing what would make me happy to purchase and she wanted that, I guess. She wanted me happy.

Back on my tiny desk, I groan as I lie down, thinking of where this line of fruitless thought is taking me. What is it about the past that is supposed to help me grow? Do we eventually start living in the memories of our teen years and twenties as the world of capitalistic, expectant reality begins to become home? Fuck, are these the questions we ask at my age?

I open an Instagram page full of Rumi quotes. If only we could all elucidate feelings like he. We have the sex, the rum & coke and the watermelon feelings. He had eccentric passion, religion and nature in blossom.

‘How’d you do it, Rumi?’

‘Love has taken away my practices and filled me with poetry.’

‘Just like that?’

‘I tried to keep quietly repeating, ‘No strength but yours’, but I couldn’t.’

‘So, you put your heart into writing?’

‘I had to clap and sing.’

‘And then, did you get her or you won’t tell me to keep me on edge, you bastard?’

‘A mountain keeps an echo deep inside itself. That’s how I hold your voice.’

‘At least tell me, will I get her?’

‘We’re groggy, but let the guilt go. Feel the motions of tenderness around you, the buoyancy.’

‘Ok, boomer.’

I walk in the sun now, coffee mug in sweaty hand and mind in a pink cloud. I wonder, how many times have people wanted me to be happy?

Blueberry July

What if? What could have been? Why not?

Such an interesting set of questions. My four friends and I could discuss this for weeks on end. The chat is what keeps the lights on in our heads at this point. Now, that I am recalling my summer with her, I am also faced with another spark of curios thought: How bulletproof are the friendships we nurture? If I could think about her on end for weeks, have the instinctive physical urge to drop whatever I was doing just to sit next to her on the couch and feel her up slowly, calmly, not even sexually, just comfortably, could I have found it that easy to end things in the way I did? And if I could do that to her, someone whose attention I indirectly and unbeknownst to me, craved, could I do that to the four friends?

Dear lord, this is Act II.

July was more of the same, but intense. Once you develop that bubble, that watermelon cover, you begin to dig deeper into the moist, foamy texture. I wanted the berries in her mind, the brown of her belly. She wanted more. She always wanted more. Actually, let me rectify that. She faced what she wanted, I denied it, when it was probably the same. There.

July was dark lilac, violet sunsets and deep orange. Lana Del Rey in the car. Her hand in mine. We had come to an unspoken agreement. 11 pints of beer had finally broken the tension, shattered it with a make out session in the car. It was long, it was wet, it was stuffy. Will we relive that again?

July was short, full of shitty movies and long spans of time spent eating Tortilla chips whilst watching Game of Thrones. The orange couches had withstood a lot. They witnessed the sweat we spilled, the clothes that we’d have to dig out from their corners, the drunkenly whispered promises. One time I asked her for a condom and that was ridiculous. One time I asked her why she wasn’t my girlfriend and that was even more ridiculous. When we go to heaven, I wonder, do we get to sit in a circle and share the fucked up shit we’d done with impunity? I hope so, it’ll liven Eden a little.

July was blueberry sweet and sour. July was me starting at her feet and ending everywhere. July was ours. Under blankets that made it so hot, it was impossible to not have our skin stick onto one another painfully, we shared stories and dreams. She told me she liked my back. I loved the color of her skin. She told me about the family she wants. I told her about my dreams. I told her my favorite fruit was the blueberry. She told me her favorite fruit but I forgot. Knowing her, it was probably something exotic.

All this time, I was resisting. Denial is loathsome but powerful. I wanted to cave in because when I felt things, I thought of her. The heart and its untraceable fallacies. When someone puts you on a pedestal, rise up with them, Adam. I got to know her in a lot of ways. Obsession with natural products, her rejection of the heroin chic body type, her direct dislike to any of the girls in my life and her desire to make me hers. That is probably when it got bad. I jumped down the pedestal and she tried to lasso me there again. I should have listened, but I ate blueberries in the sun, shades on, linen shirt half open, pretending that I wasn’t directly causing her to act that way. Clap for the scum, clap.

One July night saw us downing two bottles of wine at the isolated terrace of a bar her best friend had gotten us ticket to visit and review. I sat there and enjoyed her. I was on a date with a beautiful girl, she talked and I stared at her, listening, sipping, pouring, sipping, letting my senses run like fingers across purple velvet. I had a proclivity for hot summer nights and alcohol made everything in me tender. She told me about her grandfather and the beauty of the connection they’d shared. I think that in that moment, as soapy and Gen Z as that sounds, it hit me that I wanted to be with that girl.

Alas, that is not where the story ended. My own self preservation, my illusive denial and the primal need in me to protect myself brought the bars up. The walls formed around me. They were walls embroidered with selfishness, self importance, prioritization of my own plans, rejection of being cared for, avoidance of commitment and a search for more hook-ups, new bodies. Nobodies, really. On the apps, on the dick-pic sharing platforms and the repetitive Hi, How You Doing?, Got a Place? stages, I found nobodies. I never really, till now, found someone to tell me about their grandfather and let me smile at them genuinely as a gust of hot July wind danced around us.

On my tiny desk, I wonder why I am telling you this. Is it for the sake of soothing this aching soul? Is it because I’d spiked the coffee again? Is it in search of confirmation?

‘Rumi, any advice?’

‘I was once like you, fresh from the ground. Then I boiled in time, and boiled in the body, two fierce boilings. My animal soul grew powerful. I controlled it with practices, and boiled some more, and boiled once beyond that, and became your teacher.’

‘Blueberries are too soft to boil and maintain form. I guess I’m a chickpea; softened when boiled.’ I tried to confuse Rumi with my self-knowledge. Joke is on me, I guess.

August Kiwi

At this point, my recollection is hazy. You can probably guess why.

I lie down and drift away, dreaming in pale green tones, floating along aurora lights, trying to make sense of the mess. Trying to make this part of my story something less volatile, constructive. My soul on caffeinated Xanax is leading me to the midsection of this conflict. I guess some knowledge is innate after all.

My story with her will always be relevant because it is at the core of my struggle, a mirrored insight of what ails me: The diminishing returns, the amortized depreciation of everything that matters. I grow bored fast, I seek thrills ephemeral. And that is what happened with her and everyone after her. Me and my world of ideas never fit in with those who sought stability.

In states of semi-conscience, I see us that August. I see her and I dancing. I see us naked, hiding from her roommate. I see us look at each other across the room whilst we watched Oscar winning speeches. She wiped a tear off my acne-riddled face that night. I see her filming me during my rendition of Beyoncé’s Halo and me filming her for one of my artistic projects. I see her as I’ve tried to describe her for you.

All that ended in August because I did not know what I want.

I lie down in this isolation, thinking of gardens electric and souls departed. I pass through Wonderlands of decadence and puddles of genetic mutations. All of that would have been assuaged, worthwhile if her and I had lived in a house made of recycled kiwi packages. I imagine that would be the house were the impossible happened. This was a tale of recollection, a tale of trying to understand what happened when I nearly tread over the border of my self-preservation into the city of love and light. The kiwi house is there, all pink and lit up against a backdrop of hazy, sunsets.

I did not know what I want.

August was not much. I started to get bored because I felt smothered by how close we had become. Her naked silhouette had less of an effect on my turgidity but it was my head that was reacting like that, not her smoothness becoming defunct. August was like someone throwing water and chlorine across graves, washing off their hallowed state of ancient sadness. August was like a queen removing his make up after a night of beautiful renditions. August was the end of the what if, the what could have been and the why not.

I did not know what I want.

August was green, pale and lukewarm. It was us trying to be formal. Us recognizing I was no longer invested. Me realizing I was unfit for that life. Me realizing I was unfit for love. Me realizing I liked denial more than reality. It’s way too hard to digest, like kiwi peel, which you could actually eat, believe it or not. Here you go, a fun fact.

I did not know what I want.

I was such an extremist in the sect of Not Knowing What I Want that when she had pushed the limit of getting my attention by kissing my best friend at the time, I went up to her and told her,

‘I love you.’

All I knew is that I wanted to serve her some poetic justice. I let her believe that I loved her for 20 minutes before shooting fire from my mouth and reminding her that she would never be loved by me because ‘Someone whom I love would not hook up with my best friend for attention! Someone whom I love wouldn’t act like a whore! Someone whom I love would not compromise her character to be someone that I didn’t even know I wanted!’ She grabbed her phone, power bank and purse and rushed off.

My question is, would I have reacted like that had I not meant the first three words I had told her?

‘Rumi, who the fuck do I think I am?’

‘You are no known species.’

‘Come on, now. I know what I did will haunt me daily, but who am I?’

‘You haggle and make jokes to keep what you own for yourself.’

‘Where did I go wrong?’

‘You have forgotten the One who doesn’t care about ownership, who doesn’t try to turn a profit from every human exchange.’

That, I have.

I lie down, a kid with too many words, too little care for others, drowning in a world weighed down by expectation, emoting by swipes, minimum wage and digital annihilation. A kid with a dream of being within a house made of kiwi packages: A house, in other words, that probably doesn’t exist.

I wonder, as I suddenly float circularly (numb) but in a state of calm clarity, whether I had tasted the kiwi that I should have not skinned. How could I have been saved by her when I rejected the very concept of salvation through love? And Rumi suddenly began floating beside me, an iPhone in his hand. He tilted the screen towards me and showed me her number.

I peeled that kiwi. I can’t undo that.

Sat on my tiny desk, I wonder whether I can peel enough of myself to save the remnant mushy innards?