Tom and Jerry

I could no longer pretend to be asleep nor lull myself back to sleep after that night that I spent, my back turned to my groom, wrapped up in all of the covers, curled up like a snail. It was after seven in the morning. I could no longer resist the idea that had, with its uncontrollable lust, taken control of every cell of my body.

The man who was now my husband was very much asleep. The television was very much on, and the remote control was very much lying on the couch in front of me, saying, Come, Fatima. Touch me. Feel my keys. See my potential. Come, dear, love me as one should, I promise you horizons and music. I will give you the world, Fatima. Come love me!

The temptation was manifold. I found myself gently pulling my body from the covers and going to the couch to change the channel. I felt that I held in my hand an unvanquishable power, as if I could go to thousands of cities while sitting in my hotel room in my pajamas that smiled and winked.

I changed the channels, staring at the screen, mouth agape. The wonder I felt made me sad. I was looking for films, none of which I’d seen for years, but to my surprise I found myself frozen in front of the cartoons, watching with hungry eyes and feeling myself coming back, young and fresh and new.

For a moment I imagined that I was fine. My mother was in the kitchen frying eggs and my father would be home in a few minutes. I, a young girl with a long braid, inhaled the scent of my childhood, a small spot of chocolate milk on the collar of my pink pajamas.

The morning after our wedding night, I was awake, alone, remote control in hand. I felt I’d been given the rarest of red camels and was ready to make up for long years of life spent outside of life. That was all that mattered then.

Not marriage, not the man sleeping in my bed without a blanket, not the oppressive turn my life had taken. Nothing mattered now but Tom and Jerry.