Ahmed
He is 24, of average height, and has short dark hair. He is self-conscious. He was an observant kid from an early stage in his childhood. Whether this is a cause of his never really fitting in society or an effect he doesn’t know. He’s an only child, his parents were pretty normal, and loving. So where does this alienation come from? In his heart of hearts, he knows that he is not different from anyone else but also believes that other people individually are different in vastly interesting ways making him the simplest of all humans or possibly as he likes to point not human at all.
He was close to his grandma. Since he moved around a lot during childhood – one of the only things that remained constant were the summer vacations in her house. On one side it’s a relationship built on love but on the other, because of his condition he doesn’t quite understand the concept of ‘family’. People interest him. Their thoughts and their actions based upon their emotions interest him. It keeps him going. He doesn’t have any particular ambitions. He fell into chemistry as any brown guy falls into engineering. But like any subject be it human or academic – he embraces it. He has never had a relationship. He once kissed a girl in High School. They both agreed it was purely for ‘academic’ reasons. His feelings about Love is that he respects the concept as the holy grail of Human conditions something that can even make him human. His feelings about sex are all over the place and he doesn’t know if it’s a means of communication or something that doesn’t need one.
He likes Astrology, Astrophotography, the horizon, the monotonous rhythm of a bicycle, and the smell of concrete after it has rained.
April
She is 22, white, and has medium-length hair. She’s a little less than average in her height. She’s impulsive and aloof. She has been ‘calculating’ her whole life. Weighing decisions based on seemingly arbitrary scales. She’s very social but never really opened herself to anyone. The walls seem to be multilayered and strategically placed. She feels. She feels a lot. There was no one to talk to but herself so she mastered this form of communication. Why talk to anyone else when you can have a meaningful conversation with someone who has all the knowledge and memories that she possesses and can derive unassuming sentences based on those experiences?
People love her. She has different personalities with each of her friends. She knows this helps maintain her own prison while interacting with others. She tried to kill herself once when she was 15. She doesn’t remember why anymore. More precisely – she doesn’t know which reason it was anymore – because there were so many. She tried the whole relationship thing once in college. It’s all very structural she feels. One point leads to another. The world doesn’t make sense because it makes sense for other people. She wanted out of that structure. She wanted to be a separate dot not connected to nothing in the flow chart. She talks to strangers on the internet. She wants to eradicate the idea of oneself. Ironically, she’s studying mass communication.
She likes crickets, open spaces, green grass, the smell of jasmine during the night, and very silly Monty Python-style comedy.