Hooked By The Hijabi

Six

January, 2015

Yusha

The weather forecast promised rain but I decided to go for a run anyway. It's eleven now. Almost too late for me to call it a morning anymore, but I'm not expected in the office for another hour.

Target is in my line of vision, and I enter spontaneously. I'm not particularly a carbonated beverage junkie but two hours of aerobic exercise calls for something cool. The mall is mostly empty so I strip off my mask so I can finally breathe, without the barrier of a fabric, and stow it in the pocket of my threadbare sweatshirt.

I pull open one of the refrigerators that are stocked with drinks and choose one bottle. As I purposefully saunter towards the till something bumps into me. A shopping cart. I hear a sorry but I'm already walking away to prevent whoever it is from looking at my face. I withdraw my wallet from my back pocket and two seconds later the same voice calls out, "Hey, you dropped something!"

I pretend like I didn't think it's me she's calling. Because, if I turn around then... let's just say I don't want to deal with the look of recognition. Then I feel a tug on my hoodie and freeze. When this person comes around in front of me, I avert my head to one side and pull down my baseball cap, feeling extremely conscious of my bare face.

"I said you dropped something." There is a hint of exasperation on her tone as she reiterates. She holds out a ten dollar note.

"You can keep it." I definitely did not try to sound like a filthy rich bastard who likes to toss around bills like toilet paper but that's precisely how I inadvertently sounded. I'm about to bypass her but she gets on my way.

"Excuse me?" The girl whose face I haven't yet seen, lest she sees mine, says. "Kindly give your charity to someone who needs it." She tucks the money into my pocket and walks away.

<>

I check the time on my Fitbit before calling Dylan, my chauffeur, and tell him to pick me up from in front of Archival Automotive Repairs. Presently, I'm making my way there. The repair shop is owned by Gaston Archival, whom I've known since I was six. He taught me everything I needed to know about cars.

By now, the sky is nothing but gloomy masses of clouds.

Someone smacks roughly against my side from behind and continues to run without a single apology. I scowl at the back of the person- a girl with a headscarf- before my eyes catch a manila envelop lying on the pavement which I don't remember seeing there five seconds ago. Intrigued because it appears somewhat familiar, I pick it up. It barely takes me a second to recognize the company emblem imprinted on one side.

Because I see this emblem every single day.

AIDEN Technologies.

My company.

There are pictures inside. I shuffle through them, frowning at the faces for a few seconds until I realize what I'm looking at. Who I'm looking at.

Lightning flashes, ensued by a screech of thunder. When I look up from the photos I see the girl who bumped into me earlier standing about twenty paces ahead of me, stock-still with her hands clasped against the sides of her head. I can literally hear the cog-wheels in my head rotate as I struggle to make sense of the situation, while I mechanically clomp towards her with my gaze trained on her back. When I reach her, I swallow hard before tentatively moving to stand in front of her.

You have astraphobia.

Sorry?

Fear of thunder.

Did you swallow the pages of a dictionary when you were three? Or an encyclopedia, perhaps?

And sarcasm is your defense mechanism.