Abandon (standard:drama, 4826 words)
Author: Bobby Zaman	Added: Mar 30 2002	Views/Reads: 3589/2375	Story vote: 0.00 (0 votes)
Two childhood friends discover the pain of growing apart.

ABANDON 

by 

Bobby Zaman 

A cloud of smoke hung like a veil in front of Shehreen’s porcelain face.
 My back was knotted up like the innards of a car from sitting around 
and punching numbers for a dead end job at a bank.  No amount of 
working out, racquetball, or yoga was doing anything to alleviate the 
pain, but still I dragged myself to Bally’s at the Landmark Century 
Plaza everyday.  On top of that a nagging cough had recently taken over 
my life and Shehreen’s rampant smoking wasn’t helping.  Shehreen, my 
childhood friend, the closest human being to me.  She waved her hand 
back and forth like a windshield wiper to clear the smoke.  I sank down 
next to her on the couch, exhaustion gripping my body like a clamp, but 
happy as a nymph that it was Friday. 

“This pregnancy crap is a killer,” said Shehreen and took a long
contemplative puff of her cigarette.  Anyone else and I’d be showing 
them the door for being inconsiderate and rude, but not Shehreen.  She 
got away with everything, and had her own set of keys to my apartment.  
I’d renounce my parents before I’d ask her to return them.  I 
considered myself pretty fortunate having a friend like Shehreen.  She 
was the only person I saw on a regular basis since all my male friends 
got married, and two of them, the ones I’d been the closest with, 
already had one child a piece.  My apartment was the home of a 
non-smoker, an occasionally healthy eater, and a round the clock 
insomniac that spent his nocturnal hours tapping away on a rickety 
typewriter, a hand-me-down from an affluent that lived in a suburb 
where real estate started in the three hundred thousand dollar range.  
This uncle had also severed all ties with the rest of the family, and I 
really don’t blame him, because our clan has a despicable habit of 
landing at relatives’ doorsteps, without notice, at the slightest sign 
of hardship. 

I’ll leave the biography of my life and times at that.  And the tortured
artist bit, about having the very life and blood of my passion being 
slowly extracted out of me for eight hours every day, all that’s for 
the diary.  This is Shehreen’s tale. 

We’d known each other since we were three years old, Shehreen being four
months younger.  Our parents were college friends with a soap opera 
saga of their own.  Neither couple had plans to procreate when we 
“accidentally” graced their carefree existence with an additional mouth 
to feed.  In a way Shehreen and I were siblings separated at the last 
stage of shipping at the stork-yard, without the ties of blood, bound 
to take each other on a reckless odyssey of heartbreak, jealousy, and 
love.  That’s why, in spite of my abhorrence toward smoking, I could 
never ask Shehreen to put out her cigarette, no matter how much it 
bothered my cough.  Winter raged on outside making the air itself stiff 
brittle, and treacherous, with wind chills dipping to the nether 
regions of the barometer and penetrating the skin like a shower of pins 
and shooting straight to the bone.  Opening a window was out of the 
question.  The Friday revelers on my block were already coming out of 
their homes, scuttling down the sidewalks and hobbling into cabs.  
Shehreen snuffed the butt of her cigarette into an empty Coke can and 
immediately lit another one, then began an eloquent tirade. 

“Nabeel, darling, I swear,” she said, and before going on leaned over
and kissed me on the cheek.  “You know me.  I’m not some radical 
feminist man-hating hag.  But I swear, darling, this world would be so 
much better without men.  The whole lot of them, good and bad.  
Because, even the good ones turn bad at some point.  I know that’s 
harsh, and I sound ridiculous.  Maybe it’s just this being with child 
that’s messing with my chemistry.”  And so on and so on about Original 
Sin, spineless Adams, and ass kicking Fate.  Her eyes shone throughout 
the speech like an empress’, as if she really was addressing a mass of 
oppressed and beleaguered souls.  “I like to have a good time,” she 
continued, “and what do I get for it? This nonsense?” her hand fanned 
out on her belly like a spider. 

I shifted uneasily in my sweaty gym clothes.  “It’s only been three
weeks,” I said, the topic being far from the reaches of my knowledge, 
“Give it time, you might get used to it.”  Shehreen’s head tilted as 


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