When my family was away last week, I thought I should do something different.
I looked at my old books trying to find one that I had not really had the time to read.
I was surprised that my taste of reading has changed over the years, and I am not the same person now who found Alvin Toffler interesting 20 years ago.
So a quiet reading was out
of question.
Then my eyes rested on the car keys.
Perhaps a drive somewhere I have not been before? That did not appeal to me either.
I decided to catch up with my friends, so I called one of them.
He would not answer the phone but I had better luck with the second one.
He did not say he had better things to do, but he declined politely.
I suddenly realised that friends or things don’t exactly make themselves available when you are bored.
By 11 in the morning, I was pretty frustrated with myself.
I looked at the clock and thought the best way of spending the next eight hours or so.
I tried another friend and this one obliged.
He came over to my house half-an-hour later and we started talking about our schooldays.
Somewhere in the conversation, he touched a period of my life that I’d rather forget.
He reminded me about a bully of a teacher that made my life a misery.
Before I could change the subject, he added that the man had died last year.
Suddenly, I felt bad and guilty at the same time.
My thoughts were not charitable about him while he was alive but it was different in death.
I probed my mind for something good that I remembered about him.
There were quite a few and I felt better about it.
We talked some more about the past until lunch time.
He suggested a burger but I said I would whip something in the kitchen to satisfy our hunger.
He laughed and said that he did not wish to be poisoned.
I remembered the old curry my wife had cooked and now it was at the back of the freezer.
He was not very keen but I managed to convince him.
The electric rice cooker came handy and 15 minutes later we were tucking in and talked at the same time.
It was not until five in the afternoon that he declared he had to go back home.
A twinge of guilt made me apologise for taking him away from his family for so long.
“Oh, don’t worry about it,” he said, “I sent my wife to her parents together with children.”
Thinking about it, it was funny how we ended up been together when both our families were away.
He was also having difficulties to fill his time while alone in the house.
My call had answered his prayers as much as mine.
I am not sure what he told his wife on how he spent his day but my wife had a fit when I told her about it.
“You cooked today?” she asked and made sure all the children were listening.
I don’t think the children were impressed because they did not see the funny side.
Children do not understand the world of necessity when you feel you should not be alone at any particular time.
It would not have been the same if I had not made that call.
He would not have come and I would have probably ended up doing something stupid trying to while away the hours.
In the end, we all struggle to fill up the time but the essence here is that we need to make it worthwhile though not necessary memorable.
That where the challenge is to make every minute count.
Saleh Al Shaibany
saleh_shaibany@yahoo.com
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