Ayad took some days to realize that he'd put on the same face as everyone else - everyone else he'd notice only for that face they wore, one that's bored and empty. Like sea shells they were, how beautiful some faces can be, but empty and used, retaining but a tiny fraction of their former selves in their existence.
He'd wondered before; how could a person show that kind of expression, especially in public, where people would notice? And he'd tell himself how he would not do the same, because the world is full of surprises, and no surprise is worth that feeling of unhappiness. He would smile to others whenever he came across the unhappy ones.
And today he is one of them. How life takes you, Ayad thought. Even if it does not take you far, per say.
There was a romantic comedy on the television in the food stall where he ate. He loved and hated it at the same time; loved that it is possible to experience the moments in the show and hated that he's not experiencing it now. It's his fault anyway, but he still hated it, and hated the show in turn. It changed his expression.
It was when he encountered the same masks that a majority of the customers, and all the waiters, wore when Ayad realized - perhaps I must have put this on for the last couple of days. Perhaps weeks. He did not count the days that have passed after his enlightenment - that what he believes a little too much, is just like fairy tales.
He thought about his friend in the cell, how people have the cheek to not hang on tightly to a best friend locked away for something they'd do together. If I felt I did that, being a little alone and not always having company is indeed possible, even laughable to think the other way around.
Ayad hated his friends then. Another thing he did not imagine that could happen. He hated that he wants company that he doesn't need, and feels like he's asking too much when no one seems interested to hang out.
After he finished his meal, he smoked his cigarette. He wished it was weed, and played with the idea of smoking weed after a meal at a restaurant and pretending it is a normal ciggie. What would the loner cop sitting in front of him do?
Maybe, Ayad thought, we are both thinking the same thing, that the world is good and we are betrayed by ourselves, our own senses that notice what we want to notice, and what we want is just no good.
Smoking is still relevant - it kills time faster than it killed him. He's not run out of things to do, but certainly running out of people to do them with. And time does not go faster when this happens, it goes away slower.
Slow enough to make plenty a people to forget about their age, and that their time is running out.
It is a shame, and knowing all the facts does not make him want to do anything else but induldge in the bland taste of a day, and days, not appreciated, which is a wrong action, but there is no wrong reason to him.
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