Mariyah's Blog

As the wintery dawn approached, Alexandra Cochrane sat on the edge of the bed in her tiny dormitory room at the Hanauer residence. The home of Frau Hanauer provided rooms for five girls studying at the University. Alexandra’s father, a professor back in Scotland, thought it a good, safe place for his daughter who was in Germany to further her studies. In her hand Alexandra held the tiny piece of paper given to her by the charming stranger, Ghassan. She turned the paper over and over while looking through the frosty panes of her bedroom window. The winter had been particularly long and bitter, but the events of the previous evening brought promise of a welcoming distraction.

The sight of Ghassan was fresh in Alexandra’s mind, and more so, the sound of his voice. As a Linguistics major, she had been completely mystified by his accent. She had a good ear for identifying European accents – Spanish, French, German – but this was an inflection she had never heard. It was rich and thick with unfamiliar guttural sounds and yet flowed softly and lyrically off of the speakers tongue. His name, Ghassan – she spoke it aloud and tried to imitate the way he had pronounced it. Her imitation failed miserably. Her Scottish burr interfered with the sound that she thought perhaps should have come from her throat. She decided to let the memory of his voice fill her head instead of the currently unpleasant sound of her own.

Alexandra’s eyes glazed over as she allowed a vision of him to wash over her. As he had approached her table at the restaurant, his eyes glistened in the firelight. They were intense and intelligent and of the deepest brown with flecks of gold and amber near the pupil. They flashed but showed no signs of nervousness but rather of determination. Above, thick, dark, nicely shaped brows defined the almond shape of his eyes and a stray lock of his wavy, ebony hair teased his forehead. But despite this stray, his overall appearance was tidy and assured. He was clean shaven and his skin glowed like soft caramel; his smooth neck rising from a well-pressed shirt under a handsome overcoat.

The flight of a bird past her window awoke Alexandra from her daydream. Her hand tightened upon the paper in her hand. Her impulse was to call him right away, but she knew that an early morning call may not be received well. She thought it best that she get on with her day. As Alexandra rose to dress herself she resolved to call Ghassan later that day, after dinner. That thought brought the feeling of butterflies let loose in her stomach. She placed the phone number gently on her dressing table and turned away from it.

—–

Attraction is an entity unto itself. It hits you like a wave, washes over you and then silently creeps back to grow inside you. It starts small in the pit of your stomach but then reaches its long tendrils into your mind. The more you try to release yourself from it, the more pleasurable visions invade your thoughts. Finally, like a host for a symbiote you succumb to its whims and daydreams. You suddenly need to feed this attraction with more from whence it came. Like an addict, you find whatever means you can to secure any little morsel that will satisfy the hunger of your silent conqueror.

Alexandra could not sit still through classes. Her mind was racing. What would she say to Ghassan? What if there was awkwardness on the phone? She wondered what kind of person he was. What if he wasn’t who she thought he was? What if he wanted to do something inappropriate when they met? Then she began wondering if it was appropriate for her to call him at all. Would she appear anxious or, worse yet, easy? All day these thoughts and questions came and went. She answered her own questions over and over with answers that satisfied her desire to see him. But still the fear of the unknown plagued her.

Dinner time proved to be a nauseating event for Alexandra. As she moved the food around on her plate, unable to eat, she eyed the phone visible in the sitting room. After barely eating a bite she returned to her room and again sat on the edge of her bed. Across the room, she looked at the small but significant paper as it sat on the dressing table. Alexandra stared at if for quite some time before finally grabbing it off of the table and placing it carefully in the back of her journal. Another day she thought to herself and sighed. (to be continued)