Dark Matter

by S. W. Ahmed

  She came out running.

  Even from a distance, he could see how beautiful she was. She looked just like the way he remembered her, both from his undergrad years and his more recent virtual life experience in the Volonan Empire. Her long, auburn hair fluttered in the wind as she ran, her attractive figure well carried inside the gray suit she was wearing. As she came closer, he could see her brown eyes sparkling with excitement. And as soon as she saw him staring through the window, her lips broke into a smile.

  She ran into the security building and hugged him tightly. “Marc! What are you doing here? How did you find me?”

  He smiled, fighting hard to keep his emotions under control. “Oh, you know, information is freely available these days with modern technology. I thought I’d come by and surprise you.”

  “Surprise! Are you kidding me? I almost got a heart attack when I heard your name!”

  Her voice still sounded as sweet as ever, but it had a hint of brokenness. She had obviously been through a lot. The Mendoken had already told him about her current status, and that, of course, was why he was here.

  “How long are you in town for?” she asked excitedly. “Do you have time now? Let me show you my office!”

  “I don’t have any set schedule, and I’d love to see your office.”

  Iman led him through the plaza, into one of the buildings and up the elevator. On the 27th floor, her office faced the Danube river and the city of Vienna beyond. It was a spectacular sight, especially in the gathering dusk.

  She showed him the kind of work she was doing. The CGTU (Center for Global Tolerance and Understanding) was a new initiative at the UN, whose sole purpose it was to promote better understanding between different societies in the world, especially between nations, cultures or religions that were in conflict. Her area of specialty, of no great surprise given her identity and background, was bridging the gap between the Muslim world and the West. With current political events around the globe, this conflict was probably the biggest threat to world peace at the moment, fueled largely by prejudices and stereotypes on both sides. These prejudices had simmered over centuries of conflict and had most recently erupted to a boil. Her job, therefore, was to establish education programs for the public on both sides, programs that would break down the prejudices and help either side understand the other.

  “You know, I would love to switch careers and move more into this kind of work,” he said.

  Iman looked startled. “What! You? I thought you were always the dedicated scientist!”

  “What your organization is doing is critical for the future of the human race, I’m convinced of that. As critical as fighting global poverty and inequality, as critical as fighting famine, disease and global warming. Prejudices are usually based on complete distortions of facts, facts that are often untrue to begin with or are heavily generalized from specific events or circumstances. All you have to do is a little research or spend some time with somebody from the other side, and you’ll soon come to see that most prejudices are baseless. Spend a little time with somebody from the other side, and you’ll learn that everybody has his or her own story to tell. And in the end, you’ll see that people across the globe have more similarities than differences.

  “Science and technology will always progress with or without someone like me, because humans will always want to research, discover and build new things. But what never seems to progress is peace, unity, or understanding between people. People can have the most sophisticated computers, planes or rockets that they want, but all of it is meaningless if all they end up doing is using the technology to fight and destroy each other. The hardest science of all is social science, and that’s the science I want to be involved in from now on.

  “I agree with you that the biggest obstacles to peace across the globe are ignorance and prejudice. If the public had as much respect for people of other societies and cultures as they do for their friends and neighbors, politicians and extremists would have their hands tied and most conflicts across the globe would eventually evaporate.”

  She nodded excitedly. “That’s exactly why this center was created!”

  He stared at her, wondering how she had managed to stay so beautiful with all she must have recently been through. There was a hint of sadness in her face, no doubt, but it was only a hint.

  “Do you have plans for dinner?” he asked.

  “No. I was just going to work a little more and then go home.” She smiled. “But I can make an exception for you.”

  They ate at a local restaurant on the man-made island between the Danube and the artificial waterway. Marc paid no attention to the location or to what he was eating. All he cared about was the person he was with.

  Iman told him about her life over the past few years since their breakup. She had finished her degree at Harvard a year after he had left Boston, and had then returned to Amman, Jordan where her family was based. Her parents had insisted right away that she get married, and had introduced her to suitor after suitor. After holding out for several months, she had eventually succumbed to the mounting pressure, not just from her parents but from the entire extended family.

  “So you got married,” Marc said.

  “Yes, I had no choice. He was a young man from a very rich and well known family in Amman. The whole thing was completely arranged. I only met him a couple of times before our wedding date. He had studied in England, so somehow our two families thought we’d be right for each other because we had both lived and studied abroad. Were they wrong!

  “I was determined to try to make the marriage work, but I found him to be indifferent towards me and quite uninterested. It didn’t take long for me to figure out why. Within a week after our wedding, he confessed to me that he was actually deeply in love with someone else, someone his family hadn’t allowed him to marry. He had been going out with an English girl during his time at Oxford. Same deal as what happened to you and me – his family wouldn’t accept it, and had pressured him to marry someone from Jordan.

  “The indifference soon grew to hate, hate towards me, my family, even our culture, our country, everything. He would pick fights with me on the smallest of things, leave home and not come back for days. Everyone in my family kept telling me to try harder to make him happy, since a young man from such a good family was a unique find. I tried, believe me, I tried. But nothing worked.

  “One day, he told me he needed to go abroad on a long business trip. He was gone for a month. Then, a couple of weeks later, he took off again. He didn’t call or write once during those trips. After a few more of those long trips, he came back home one day and told me he didn’t want anything to do with me anymore because I wasn’t pleasing him as his wife. That was when I broke down and finally gave up on him. I left the house and went back to my family. My brother did some research, and soon found out that my husband was spending all his time in England, having an affair with that same girl back in Oxford.

  “That was when my family turned 180 degrees. They totally took my side and stood up for me against him, providing evidence to his family that he was the one at fault for the breakdown of our marriage. Then I filed for divorce.

  “My family stood by me, but our community did not. All the blame fell on me for ruining the marriage. He could have done no wrong because his family was so respected, and also because he was the guy and I was the girl. His family, with all their wealth and power, went on a whole campaign to discredit my parents and spread slander about me. My father began to suffer mentally and physically. One day, he came home and collapsed in front of our eyes with a massive heart attack. He died on the way to the hospital, not even 60 years old.”

  “I’m so sorry to hear that,” Marc said. “I didn’t know.”

  Iman’s eyes turned moist. “It was the hardest time of my life, Marc. I fell into a long period of depression. The slandering didn’t stop, even after the passing of my father. It soon became clear to my mother and my siblings that it wouldn’t be easy to
find any other respectable man who would want to marry me under those conditions. Not that I wanted to marry again! I just wanted to leave Jordan, to start afresh somewhere else and to build my career. After some persuasion, during which my younger sister actively supported my cause, my mother and brother reluctantly agreed. They also agreed not to pressure me into marrying again. I was finally free to do what I wanted.”

  “How did you end up coming to Vienna?”

  “Well, you know how I’ve always had this thing about how there are no societies more misunderstood in the West than those of the Middle East. When I returned to Jordan, it became very clear to me that the misunderstandings went both ways. And with the rising tide of hate and anger on both sides since the horrors of 9/11 and the wars that followed, I decided to pursue a career in bridging the gaps. I began searching all over, and on the Internet found the links to this new UN organization in Vienna. I applied for a job and got accepted! I’ve been here now for over a year.”

  “And how has life been for you overall since you moved here?”

  “The work has been great. It’s exactly what I hoped it would be, and more. But I’ll be honest – life here is lonely. I don’t have any relatives here, which I suppose is both good and bad. But I don’t have too many friends either.”

  “Have you been dating?”

  “I went out on a few dates with a couple of different men I met at the UN. But things never clicked. We just didn’t connect. I’ve never connected with anyone, not like I did with….” Her words trailed off as she looked away, and she remained quiet for a moment. “Then I gave up, and I’ve been single since.”

  The moment, Marc knew, had come. “I’ve been doing a lot of thinking for a while,” he said. “And I know it’s crazy to bring this up now after all this time. I’m not here because I’ve suddenly had an old crush rekindled, nor am I trying to relive our college years due to an early midlife crisis. I’m here because I’ve reached the realization that you and I actually can have a great future together. We were both young before and immature about a lot of things. But we’ve both learned from our mistakes since we last saw each other, and I think the kind of things we’ve learned are things that have brought us closer together, not further apart.

  “I’m not saying that we should go make passionate love tonight to make up for all the time lost. Nor am I suggesting that we should run right away to the nearest church, mosque or courtroom to get married. But what I am saying is that perhaps we could try starting again from the beginning. We could try dating and see how things go. I think we’ll both be surprised at how wonderful it could get.”

  Iman looked stunned at first, but then just stared for a long time at her half finished meal of turkey schnitzel and potato salad. Finally, she looked up at him. “If you actually are serious about what you just said, would you be willing to live here in Vienna? I really don’t want to move from my current job at the moment, and you know how I’ve never been a fan of long distance relationships.”

  Marc’s mouth slowly opened into a wide grin. “I’ve always wanted to visit here. So why not try living here in one shot?”

  He reached over to give her a kiss. The whiff of perfume that filled his nose was all too familiar. Her favorite brand hadn’t changed in all these years.

  She didn’t resist his advance. “Marc, I…”

  They kissed. It was a brief kiss, but it lasted a sweet eternity for him. Her lips felt just as soft and warm as they used to.

  He sat back down, and looked at her thoughtfully.

  “What?” she asked, blushing.

  He just shook his head. He couldn’t very well tell her how much and for how long he had been waiting for this moment.

  He decided to change the topic instead. “So are there any job openings in your organization? I know the UN has got its inefficiency and bureaucracy issues, and there’s a lot of ugly politics. But it’s still the most encompassing body this planet has ever seen. If there’s any organization that has a chance to bring the world together, it’s the UN. Besides, I would love to work side by side with you. I think we could make quite a team.”

  Iman grinned, and a mischievous twinkle appeared in her eyes. “I’m sure we could work something out. But what if you have to end up working for me, instead of with me?”

  “I’ll take anything, as long as there’s both you and global understanding in the picture.”

  They talked about many other things as they finished their meal. Then they went for a walk along the riverside.

  Marc put his arm around her, and looked up into the night sky to thank the Creator for bringing the two of them back together. But his eyes instantly widened with surprise.

  “Iman, what do you see up there?” he asked.

  She looked up at the sky. “I see a clear night sky like any other. Why do you ask?”

  “Hmm? Oh, nothing.”

  He couldn’t tell her, of course, what he could see, or that he had finally figured out what parting gift his Mendoken friend Sibular had given him. The sky was filled with billions of stars, all right next to each other, all shining brightly. The entire sky was like a giant sheet of bright white spots, far brighter and far more crowded than he had ever seen from Earth before. It was the same view as that of the night sky from Lind, from Meenjaza, from the many other planets and ships he had been on over the past month.

  “Just a small token to always remind you of your time here with us,” Sibular had said. Sibular had evidently injected something into Marc’s eyes, some tiny, invisible piece of sophisticated Mendoken technology. Marc now had to be the only person on Earth who could see right through the silupsal filter surrounding the solar system, as if it wasn’t there at all.

  For the rest of his life, he realized, he would be able to look up at the sky every clear night and remember his journey through the heavens. For the rest of his life, he would constantly be reminded that it hadn’t all just been a dream.

  “Just a small token indeed,” he thought, and smiled.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  S.W. (Sajjad Waiz) Ahmed is an American science fiction writer of Bangladeshi origin. He grew up in Austria and moved to the United States at the age of 18, where he studied electrical engineering and pursued a career in computer software. A keen follower of science and an avid reader of science fiction since childhood, he now writes his own sci-fi stories as a hobby. He currently resides in the San Francisco Bay Area with his family. Dark Matter is his first novel.

  The author’s web site can be found at www.swahmed.com.