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3 pages, 1,337 words, 7 minutes read time.
He insisted that he remain anonymous, but I didn’t ask twice, because I never do.
“If I were to give you a false name, what would you like to be called?” I asked him.
He said, “Jack Sparrow,” and later he changed it to “Mr.Singh”. He said no picture. He said no audio recording.
I explained how the audio recording helps me keep a record of the things that are said, and that it will not be shared with the public.
“Just write it in your book – I think that’s better,” he said. And so I did just that.
Storytime. What’s the story? This is a first-love story, with a rather predictable twist.
Jack Sparrow / Mr.Singh was a young man back in his home country, getting grades and working hard selling luxury watches at a shopping center. He told me how he was really a very good salesman; the best salesman in the company, in fact. He was waiting to be granted a Visa to pursue his post-secondary education in Canada. Unfortunately for his poor heart, there was a girl who worked the makeup counter at that shopping center, and Jack Sparrow / Mr.Singh fancied her very much.
“She was doing makeup, and I just rushed to her,” he said, “I couldn’t stop it.”
There is a feeling some call love at first sight – Jack Sparrow / Mr.Sing described just such a feeling to me then. He spared no detail about this woman’s beauty; he circled and circled the topic, sharing poetic notions about her eyes, her hair, her aura. Undoubtedly, she was the most beautiful woman that has ever existed in this world. Undoubtedly, this was love.
“Then my stupidness started,” he laughed as he began confessing the true extent of his obsession. He told me he would visit this girl each day while she was working at the makeup counter, and that he would be sure to take his lunch break when she took hers. He said he “followed her around everywhere,” and at night, when he felt alone, he would scroll through her Facebook and stare at pictures of her for hours on end.
“She would say, ‘Why are you so desperate?’ ‘Why are you stalking?’ But, you know, I couldn’t help it – I have so many feelings for her.”
“Where you stalking her though?” I asked.
“No. We were friends.”
Things carried on this way until Jack Sparrow / Mr.Singh received notice that his visa to Canada had been granted. He confessed his heart to the woman at the makeup counter, and they decided that their friendship must end, as he was moving far away. He left the country in sadness.
Then, on the very day that he landed in Canada, he found out that his older sister had tragically and unexpectedly passed away.
“I wasn’t able to attend her funeral, but she was like a mother – I was raised by her… I don’t have words for that, you know?”
A seriousness settled at the center of the table, making my coffee go cold.
He spoke about the grief and loneliness he suffered during his first long winter in Canada. He was living with a handful of roommates from his home country, all of them displaced and trying to survive in the snow. The conditions of his visa were so demanding; he could not let his grief impact his grades, nor could he take any time off to acclimate himself. If he slipped up, he would not be allowed to stay in Canada.
He told me that on one dark night, he stole a bottle of whisky from his roommate and drank it until it was finished. He had never had hard liquor before in his life. He called his brother-in-law – the husband of his late sister – and cried to him on the phone. When his roommates realized what had happened, they told him that he must go to temple. He was sick, and bitter at god, but he went anyway. He chopped his hair in grief.
But the winter did end, and Jack Sparrow / Mr.Singh finished his schooling with a perfect GPA. He decided it was time to reach out to the most beautiful girl in the world; for all along, the suffering he felt for his sister was amplified by the suffering he felt for his lost love.
“I messaged her, and I said, like, ‘Did you still remember me?’ – hehe – and she said, ‘Yeah, yeah, I remember you.’”
He took this opportunity to tell me more about her beauty, which I surely could not fathom. At one point he asked me, “Do you want to see a picture of her?”
“Oh, no, that’s not necessary,” I said, waving my hands as he poked through his phone.
“I think she’s blocked me or something,” he said, grinning to himself as if it were fond memories; the great game of love.
“But if we use your phone,” he said, “we can look at her.”
“No.”
“She has a husband and two children now. She lives in Toronto. I think it is fate that she is here in Canada.”
“But, *Jack Sparrow / Mr. Singh, she’s married – don’t you think maybe she has moved on?”
“Yes, she has moved on.”
This love story ended ten years ago, actually, when our storyteller told a friend from his home country that he was messaging this woman again, and his friend went and teased her about it. Her reaction to this was such utter embarrassment that she blocked Jack Sparrow / Mr.Singh on everything, and never, ever spoke to him again.
“I think my stupidity took her away,” he told me. For five years, he thought about her every day, pining and longing and choking himself with questions and regrets. Now, ten years later, he had begun to accept things. In fact, Jack Sparrow / Mr.Singh was plotting for the future now.
He said, “People have myths in their minds. Like, everyone from my country dreams to date a white girl.”
“Oh,”
“If I got a relationship now, I would be crazy for her and treat her like a queen. I just want to hold someone’s hand who just says, ‘I’m yours,’ because I am very lonely in Canada. I am very much a guy with so much feelings, full of love and emotions. I always wanted someone with whom I can share these things.”
He was talking fast, but I was determined to get quotes. My hand was leaping back and forth across my notebook, and my eyes and nose were stuck in the book so that I did not have to look him in the face. He carried on.
“I think you were God-sent,” he said.
“I don’t think so.”
I asked him what he was looking for, hoping it would steer the conversation back towards the original story.
He said, “Honestly, nothing – I’m just giving her love and happiness.”
This is when I burst into a fit of hysterical laughter, which I could not stop. He saw this and began laughing as well, saying, “What? What is it?”
“It’s just – you keep talking about women like it’s one thing.”
“Yeah,”
“So what – you just want a woman? Any woman? It doesn’t matter which woman?”
“No, not any woman,” he said.
Still, I was laughing absurdly.
“Okay,” I said, “so then what are you looking for?”
He said, “She should be everything different. Your way is very appealing – the way you are. Someone whom I can admire; your look is very good. Like, for example, hairstyle – you have a wonderful hairstyle. She should not be for everyone – she should be just for me.”
I jotted down the last quote, closed my book, and told Jack Sparrow / Mr.Singh that I think I got enough for a story. Then I walked him to his car. He asked if we could hang out again soon, and I said no. He said I am now a lost love, and I said no.
He drove off.
I smoked a cigarette.