The river of fire

She watched the leaves fall around the garden. She felt she was a candle burning in the wind. She thought of a river flowing like a tongue of fire. Then she thought of what it was like to be God.

It is better to think that God does not exist than to think he is a cruel God. Yes, God is a "he". In fact, God must surely be a man, devoid of compassion and mercy when he is needed most.

No matter how much you cry, there are no answers, merely silent echoes from an empty wall. Like a deep hole in the dark of the night, dense with nothingness.

If God were a woman, she would empathize with the pain and heartaches of lovelorn lovers, of refugees, fleeing from their countries, crossing borders. She would open up lands, reunite families, bring together friends and bridge the gap between lovers, fusing them as one, as if they had never been apart.

But God is a man. Men love structures, pillars and construction work. Men love concrete, heights and width of things, barriers, depths and distance. It does not matter that these things were dead. Men do not need lives.

Women are just the opposite. They love potted plants and beautiful gardens as if they could sleep with them. They wish to create life, even though it was only planting an herb plant.

Is that too much to ask for, she wondered? Perhaps, it was only her being too demanding on herself. It was only her who often wanted the impossible. Or, was it because she did not deserve the impossible? Perhaps, she was seeking to be different. Or was she asking more than she deserved?

“Why are you so complicated?” Her mother asked. “Be normal,” her father said, as if she had borderline personality issues.

She finally understood what it meant to be a refugee when his visa to visit her in Bangkok was rejected due to technical reasons. He did not have a local bank account with six months transaction. His Bank of America account was useless here although he did not close it when he left Monterey last month, after completing a Fulbright scholarship.

He thought it would make a difference to the immigration officer that he was now a Masters of Public Affairs and International Management. That he was now clean shaven and did not wear his Salwar Kameez. He now wore t-shirts and blue jeans.

She sink into her bed every night after work and cried her heart out. She had waited long enough, she sobbed. She did everything right, she wailed. What else must she do? She was prepared to meet him despite the odds. She prayed that God would use his magic wand to push the obstacles aside.

But she forgot that God is a man. Men do not fight against the odds, they just leave.
She thought she felt worse that God had left her, than the fact, that her lover of four years could not be with her. She did not want to see him six months down the road. For life was unpredictable.

But since the news arrive, every day she walked in the streets like a zombie. On the dusty streets of Bangkok, she stared enviously at young Thai women flirting or dating elderly white men old enough to be their father and thought miserably: Happy are the non-committed and unfaithful, for yours is the kingdom of love.

What kind of message is this – a message that floats in the universe, as if it were a message from God?

Tears started to fill her eyes, blurring her vision. She wiped them with her bare palms, her head reeled. Her heels got stuck in a big crack in the cement path. She fell to her knees. Scratch marks appeared instantly, and she felt pain.

She realized she had been a fool to have had so much faith, to be so pregnant with expectation, to believe that if one did the right thing, the right things would happen.

She remembered the words of the Dark Knight, where Batman said: Sometimes, the truth is not enough. Sometimes people needed to be rewarded for their faith.
Or else, it is easy to think that it's better to scorn the truth.

It doesn't pay, she finally said to herself, to be faithful and abiding in love. It was as if she has just swallowed the bitterest concoction in her life. God does not reward the faithful but the flirtatious. Because God is a man. Men do not believe in monogamy.

"God has left me," she told him over their routine internet chats, the refuge for star crossed lovers across the borders. She was still aching from the fact that God could have wielded his supernatural powers over the Thai embassy in Karachi, fill the officer’s heart with sympathy and have her lover’s visa to Bangkok approved.

No such thing happened. God was busy with the Marriot Hotel bombings in Islamabad where hundreds of people died, where organs were found scattered around the tragic area. Every living soul in Pakistan felt as if he or she was standing on the edge, waiting to be pushed off into oblivion.

Still the people believed in God, so does her lover. Here she was weeping because his visa was rejected.

"I did not leave you," he replied, trying desperately to convince her that this long distant love affair could stand the test of time. That with all the challenges they faced, it could transcend the barrier of distance. "Be patient, I will find a way to be with you soon".

How soon, neither he nor she could tell. To her, it already felt like an eternity. The river of fire was real. Augustine the tarot card reader from Indonesia had said: You'll have to cross the river of fire to be with him. It is entirely up to you. It is your decision. But he is your soul mate in life and death.

"You'll forget me," she said sadly. "It's only a matter of time".

"After all we've been through? I am not about to leave your hand," he countered. "Please don't have such negative thoughts".

"There are countless young women out there - South Asians, Arabs, white women. How could you resist? You are after all, just a man".

She could hear him sigh in exasperation. They've been through this conversation a thousand times before, with no change in her perception, or prejudice, despite his incessant pleadings that "I am different".

"You make me out to be a porn star, just waiting to hump a woman at sight," he finally breathed the words. "What makes you think that every woman wants to fuck me? Or that I want to fuck every woman?"

"You are a man. Men want to fuck women".

"The only woman I want to fuck is you and you know it".

She did not believe his words. Not that he had ever cheated her. But she rationalized her fear to be this: That she was fat and forty and he was 14 years her junior. That there was no guarantee that he would always find her sexy.

That he was someone from a different country, culture, race and religion. That his religion permitted him to have four wives. And that his culture promoted arranged marriages.

"It makes no difference to me," he told her when they met in a conference, four years ago. "Age is but a number. We are soul mates in heart and soul. Besides, I do not believe in arrange marriages".

Her friends were worried.

"What? 14 years younger? Are you a cradle snatcher?" screamed a friend who believed that men should be older than their partners as they matured so very slowly - either emotionally or mentally.

"Younger men are bound to find younger women," said an activist friend, who worked with women's groups all her lives, counseled hundreds of cases, some of them included younger men who deserted their wives for younger women.

"I do not like relationships with weaker men," added a former colleague, as if strength had anything to do with age.

But there were cheerleaders, too.

"Wowee! You kinky slut," said a good friend who often marveled at her habitual 'impulsiveness' to gratify herself. "Good for ya, girl".

Another came up with scientific evidence to convince her that older women should be humping younger men due to their different levels of bodily hormones. To which her lover whole heartedly agreed to when she told him about it.

"By the time I get to be 40, I don't think I'd be so sexy anymore. It'll take lots of effort to get it up. So don't worry about those younger women".

She knew he was trying to comfort her. She knew her friends were all being cautious or careless, depending on their own personal experiences.

People often offered you advice they wished they had given themselves years ago, she realized.

Some were totally misinformed as well, and many perpetuate prejudices handed down by their grandmothers, aunties and mommies, as if they were the family heirloom.

She cast her doubts to the winds. She made a silent vow to challenge the hands of fate. The only thing that mattered to her now was how to cross that river of fire.

[ends]