What Not To Do When You're In Love

11 | Art

11 | Art

I'm not exactly sure what he wanted from me. Everything that a female person could ever need, he'd pick up from the aisles and hold up, and ask me if 'we' needed it.

"Why would we need another dustbin, Hasan," I laughed. "Chill. If I need something, I'll tell you."

But he never listened, and just kept on throwing in stuff he thought I needed to own, or wanted, and each time he'd reach out for something else, I'd put back something useless he'd thrown in earlier.

"I don't understand what it was that you needed, though. None of these things here seem to be of urgent use for you."

"Yeah, because I didn't really need anything. I was just bored."

"Oh Allah. And you decided to come here. Honestly, try reading a book sometime," I said. "Normal people do that when they're bored."

"That's what I'm doing," he said.

I gave him a questioning look. "You don't make sense, sometimes, Hasan."

"I'm trying to read you," he said in a serious tone, and I looked at him like he was crazy.

"You're comparing me to books?"

"Art," he said, with the smallest smile. "I'm just trying to learn more about you, and it feels like I'm admiring an artwork."

"But art is beautiful," I said, "and art doesn't fight with you."

"Hmm. Every picture isn't perfect. But every picture is beautiful."

And I struggled for words.

"That's . . . flattering," I said and looked away, flustered on the outside, most likely, but floating internally. He was being too mushy, and was probably unaware that these words and gestures would not occupy my mind like, a couple of hours later.

"Hasan?" I called, and I don't even know why, asked him, "Do you make art?"

"I had a friend in high school," he said, dropping some candy bars into our trolley. "He was so good that even years later, my mind still goes back to him and his able hands at the mention of the word 'art'.

"Nadir could paint you like you are now, standing here, looking at me but with your mind anywhere but. He could capture the exact expressions on the faces of wild beasts, the serene sceneries of the most complex landscapes, the minutest details on every petal of an exotic flower.

"That man didn't just make art, Adinah," he said, his eyes twinkling, his face filled with awe. "He truly made it come alive."

"Visual arts are magic," I confirmed. "I've always been a fan myself."

"He really was a wizard, though. You know what the thing about a pencil is? An artist can paint the smallest of insects, the largest of mountains, bacteria, entire galaxies.

"An artist's hands are the universe and everything it holds, indirectly of course, because Allah u Alam. But what I mean is that he could create anything that he could see, or I should say anything he could picture.