We met on a magical night. We stole glances amid sips of Sahlab and puffs of Sheesha.. Her smile radiant like the crescent that glowed on that Ramadan night. The fortune teller, making her rounds amongst the sober revellers, foretold our future fortunes. She was to have four kids. Coincidentally, I was to have four kids too. Our friends joked that it would be together. I didn’t laugh. I dreamt. I drove her home that night. The conversation flowed like a river of honey and I buzzed with excitement. That night, I built our future together. The two boys and the two girls. They were very good looking kids. I saw her by my side as I won my Pulitzer Prize silently confessing, “I love you” as she gripped my hand with her silky tender fingers. The next day, I glided through the working day smiling at my boss as he chewed me out for forgetting to prepare a presentation for one of our key clients. My secretary gasped as I stirred in an extra packet of sugar in my coffee and ate a whole double chocolate muffin. Life was really sweet. That evening we MSNed. “I am waiting for the man who will send me flowers, lavish me with chocolate, and woo me with a 2 carat diamond ring”, she confided in me. Forty five minutes later she had a bouquet of thirty roses. Eighteen hours later, I brought her Swiss chocolate as we spent a wonderful evening together over Italian cuisine and a bottle of Shiraz at one of the town’s most exclusive restaurants. The diamond ring was no longer a fantasy; it was a probable possibility.
 
The following evening I was having a business dinner with my boss and the key client whose presentation I had botched.  As I was turning around to get the attention of the waiter, I saw her sitting cosy at a secluded table with one of the richest playboys in town.  They were flirting. I did not call her the next day. She did not either. It’s been a week.  I am hurt and angry. “I don’t send flowers and chocolate to a girl every day”, I bemoaned the act of betrayal to my friend. “The flowers have already wilted and the chocolate has been eaten”, my friend consoled me, “good that you did not get her the diamond ring because diamonds last forever, usually!”