Talha el Ghafoor

He was flippant and boisterous, occasionally peevish and thoroughly superficial. That is he was a young man of twenty-two. Born in Rabat - the capital city of Morocco - Talha el Ghafoor was full of oxymoron traits. Handsome but reclusive, strong but timid. As so often happens with people of unproven talents he found his native soil well below his ideals. Paris, Leon or even neighboring Iberia would have been better. But as he had slowly come to understand, life, like poker to a loser, is not fair.
His father was a sedulous craftsman who taught him to dream big and work hard. Unfortunately, he could only learn to dream big. Naturally, this resulted in a twisted outlook towards life that could most politely be termed as romantic. This disposition deservedly entitled him a place in eighteenth-century France. His strong sense of morality - with minor condonable lapses - coupled with a deep sense of guilt at his own existence further reinforced this claim.
Stepping into the shoes of his father he decided to become a craftsman. This decision owed little to his being a dutiful son - which he unquestionably was - and more to his fruitless attempts at acquiring a decent job. But he never regretted it (a surprising occurrence one must add), as he was an excellent craftsman with an unmatched propensity at salesmanship. His delightful smile at seeing his thoroughly cheated customers say gleeful good-byes would leave even a pious churchgoer refresh. He greatly admired these customers, mostly tourists, especially those visiting from France: Their art, culture, history and philosophers. But more their wine and cheese.
Soccer was more than a passion to him. It was an expression of true inner feelings. Those who had seen him at the games that pitted Morocco against its stronger rivals were left with little doubts in their minds about his patriotism and sanity. In riots that usually followed these games he always successfully showed that he is even willing to die for soccer. He is also willing to die for Amina Assayed to whom we shall turn our attention now.
This happened recently as after some hectic learning and scholarly discussions he realized that his sole purpose in life is to woo a mate, preferably a female. And Amina was not his first love - something he found very hard to believe. Before she took charge of his feelings he was infatuated with another woman whose name he hardly remembers now. But he is not to be blamed. It's natural. After all, he was just twenty-two and living perilously close to Paris. Once he mustered enough courage and wrote a Byronic letter only to note with great horror that his extremely serious piece of writing was considered hilarious by his friends. He was disheartened.
For this very reason he would often find himself in the clutches of loneliness. He hated mingling in society. 'Socializing is a menace invented by the rowdy and frivolous to humble the quiet genius', his learned judgement. The only things he could talk about were his lonely walks and solo dinners, bizarre encounters and embarrassing situations. But sometimes, for no apparent reasons, life would turn as lively as a gleeful chic on some spirited downtown street. Not surprisingly, the crowded boulevards of downtown were his favorite places where he would spend his leisurely evenings along with his misguided friends staring agape at the scantily clad robust girls. A pastime so common to people his age.
He was an inveterate pessimist. So much that even Schopenhauer would be proud of him. Once he forfeited an entire month's earning to a single throw of dice, which, among other things, was heavily loaded in his favor (what misfortune!). He was discouraged from pursuing every other interest so he could sharpen his craftsmanship. In school he was known less for his intellectual advancement and more for his exemplary imbecility. It's hard to find circumstances more conducive to pessimism. He had little reason to be cheerful.
His consistent setbacks in life naturally led him to believe in a philosophy that was very close to deterministic. While he was in school a teacher told him about Spinoza. Though now he had no recollection of the philosopher but his philosophy left a lasting imprint on his blooming mind. He tortured and twisted the Spinozoic ideas until it occurred to him that a more affectionate doctrine would lend him a place in clergy. Once he turned himself into an accomplished determinist (or, perhaps, a convoluted determinist) there was little he was liable for. Here was his ingenious solution to all misfortunes.
Needless to say he is not happy with life. He is filled with anger that comes so handy with unhappiness. His mother, having foreseen this likely event, prepared him well for such unpleasantness ahead and instilled in him the comforting religious ideals. As a consequence he was a regular visitor to the mosque. He would listen with rapt attention the eloquent sermon of the 'khateeb', ignoring what is unacceptable to him, and later on when he has time to recap, he would quietly and gradually remove out of memory what is disturbing. There is nothing unnatural about this.

A nonbeliever might use his religious upbringing as an explanation for his meager skills at pecuniary affairs. Lord giveth and Lord taketh away. Why worry? But a discerning observer would see a more profound reason: his innocence at grasping the cunningness of shady dealers. But his sophisticated adversaries put the same thing in a slightly different manner. They dubbed it an utter inability to comprehend the risk. What they didn't realize is that nobody has seen youth and rationality together. Not unlike many others, he was yet to develop the habit of paying cumbersome obligations (called taxes). As polite reminders he was thrice forced to pay visits to the 'Zindan', or Bastille, as he would like to call in French. 'Never again', he thought as he begged pardon on each occasion.
Even a dispassionate reader would be tempted to think that Talha is a perverse, idiosyncratic young man who doesn't have the mettle to succeed in life and should be left to stew in his own juices. Even his fiercest admirers would hesitate to disagree and there is little reason to blame them. But Talha, despite all his glaring omissions and slips (which are so common to imperfect humans), is innocent. He had made most of the few opportunities that came his way like strayed travelers. He has vigor and energy, zeal and passion and only if life had not been that unfair with him he would have found a better biographer who would write volumes in his praise. Somewhere he read: 'This is the best of all possible worlds'. For some people, perhaps, not for Talha. And he has a strong case against it.