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Salimat walked to the next room, moving slowly as if her legs weighed a ton. She stood before an image of Jesus Christ that hung from the wall, knelt down, clasped her hands and began to pray.
"God Almighty, people ask you for riches, gold, money. I don't need any of that, just let me have Arthur, please! Help me this one time, I beg of you! I can't live with this betrayal! I'd rather die than go through this pain! Am I to believe that this was just a game for him? If he didn't need me, then why did he pursue me? I kissed his feet, and he cast me off. I don't even have a picture of him! Jesus, how can this be, how can I go on without Arthur?"
Salimat got up and went to the bookcase. Slowly, she sat on the floor, resting her head on books. Tears of despair and pain slowly rolled down her cheeks. Where's he? Where's my kind, caring, brilliant Arthur? Why did he laugh so much? Where did his boisterous laughter disappear? Salimat struggled to understand how someone who loved and understood Dreiser and Hugo could do something so inconceivably low! Her brain, her entire being could not and would not accept that a man who's read and loved Dreiser and Hugo would not love her, Salimat, too! She opened her eyes and pulled out a random book from the bookcase. She glanced at the cover and saw Madam Bovary by Flaubert staring back at her. Salimat felt the picture smiling sadly at her, as if saying: "I'm not alone, I'm not alone, you're just as unhappy as I am!" Salimat shrieked with sobs, threw the book against the wall, and began throwing the books out of the bookshelf and onto the floor, all the while weeping hysterically.
"It's all your fault! You ruined my life! I read all of you, lived in your world for too long, and what did that do for me? I can't live in the real world with real people!"
Salimat stayed at home for the whole week. She waited for Arthur's call, never taking her eyes off the phone. When it rang she's jump with excitement and anticipation, run to life the receiver after first ring, but every time it was someone else, and she could hardly contain herself from throwing the phone out the window.
Salimat came to the realize that Arthur is not as jovial and caring as she once thought, but she couldn't come to terms with the idea that such a smart and intelligent man would stoop so low! "Why did he pursue me, just to have a few nights of passion?" she wondered. Since Arthur stopped calling her, Salimat had lost her sleep, appetite, and her zest for life. She was numb inside, her feelings having become dull as if her very soul has died. She had been writing a novel for the past six months, but now it seemed like a distant past. Why was she writing? For whom? What love is there? Has she ever known this love? Maybe she should write about her love for Arthur? She became convinced long ago that she'll never fall in love; so how did she manage to get involved in this mess? Why didn't she see that Arthur didn't want her? He's too preoccupied
9/11
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