Sophia

Author: Mohammed Hasan Alwan

Mu'taz, a man in his thirties, doesn't draw attention or provoke questions. He suffers from a deep internal state, the nature of which he doesn't understand – perhaps a defect in the optic nerve, a rebellion in memory cells, or chromosomal madness. The important thing is that he'll accept anything that comes his way, provided he doesn't remain in the same state for too long, thus becoming boring. His parents died in a car accident when he was twenty-five, leaving him their entire fortune. He married and quickly divorced his wife after three years of marriage, fearing that he would get used to her, and the boredom that would ensue. One day, he met Sophia, a Lebanese Christian, online. She represented a strange antithesis to the monotony of his life, so he decided to visit her in her apartment in Beirut. When he entered, he felt as if he had stepped into a shrine.