a walk to remember

it was the night we had farewell dinner for J at Medina.after the 'makan besar', my stomach literally felt like it has extended to my throat, my mind could easily match a drunk girl but in this case it obviously not because of 10 pints of Guinness but of yummilicious Indian biryani.I parted with Shaz,J n Fifa at the end of Camden st..off I went towards Spar.

Out of nowhere.."Salam alaykum sister.Why are u walking alone at night?" My heart sank,muscles threatened to go into spasm. the accent..sooooo not Irish.My head went "arghhh not now!!" so keeping my eyes low and walking as fast as i could i said "Oh i was with my friends".and still these long legs kept their par beside me.I couldnt even see his shoulder.

He started with a few pleasantries.Where are you from?why are u here?have you been here long?and i asked him the same things.All this while he kept his distance..not invading my personal space which made me let my guard down a tad bit.i thought.. this is fine, I probably can ditch him somewhere along rathmines.He has been working in quite a few parts of the world..the states,europe and africa.then he asked how much is the flight to Malaysia,how long will it take,where can u transit from...just like a tourist..and i stole my first glance at him,finally i think it was safe to look at him.Then its his turn to promote the tourism in his country,Algeria.He asked me do u know where it is?i was so glad i got it right..i must sound so stupid if i didnt know my geography.Then yeah i asked about his country,its a republic,Islamic country,the population and so on.

I started to enjoy the conversation that follows.Palestine,saddam's execution,9/11, friday prayers hehe..where i did most of the questioning and listening as he poured his opinion.what i like about him is the fact that he really believed in Al-Quran,kept repeating that we should go back and refer to it and how we should truly believe that one day Islam will come top again.He told me how he missed athan having living in Dublin for 9 years.He lacked practicality but still i like it hehe. After so long this was the first time i had a refreshing intelligent conversation with a stranger..more so a muslim brother.

50 meters from my front door,i started to fidget because he was still walking beside me.."mamat ni nak ikut aku balik rumah ke??".I cant help but asked where he was heading and he told me he lives further up the road.when i reached my home, i said "Im here".Without turning to me he just said "Salam alaykum" and walked away.

He didnt ask for my name or my number. I was soooooo relieved.

As i closed my door, it hit me..His intention was just to walk me home safely!!Chivalry is such a rarity in my life that what happened touched me deeply.All the while i was thinking die mesti salah sorang mamat gatal nak kacau orang pompuan.

Yeah girls demand guys to be gentlemen.We know its a rare subspecies- gentleman.We condemn those who are not one.We also condemn those who tried but appeared to be a gentleman just to show off.Guys might say..tak paham ape korang nak..sume pon tak kene.I might say the extra hand on the X chromosome might be responsible for our complexity.U cant live with us,u cant live without us.

and guess what the icing on the cake is??He is a handsome guy =P