"Here you go, Mona, take extra-strength, prescription Beano and you'll be fine," Dr. Ahmed Ali said to the curvy, Hijab-wearing middle-aged Emirati Arab Muslim woman, and he discretely handed her the gas medicine. Mona Habib nodded sagely, and took the bag, then walked out of the psychiatrist's office. She felt both relieved and embarrassed at having finally found a potential solution to the problem that had plagued her for ages.
Dammit this flatulence of mine has gotten out of control, Mona thought to herself as she headed to the front of the building. It was a beautiful day in the City of Barrhaven, Ontario, but Mona wasn't having the best of days. For starters, her manager wanted to switch her out of the night shift and into the day shift, which wouldn't work for her at all. Oh, and there was also the daily issues that Mona had to deal with as a divorcee living in Canada's tough and expensive Capital region.
"Hopefully this will help," Mona Habib said to herself, and she headed to her car, parked close to the back of the building. Across the street, she looked longingly at the Shawarma Heaven restaurant, a place where she'd just eaten her fill. She felt like going back for a second helping and then thought better of it. At five-foot-ten, Mona was taller than most women, but her weight was slowly getting out of control. She felt hopeless at two hundred and fifty pounds, and every diet she tried failed miserably...
A few months ago, Mona's former husband Tariq Jaber ended their ten-year marriage, and moved in with his new girlfriend, a tall and skinny, blonde-haired white woman named Beatrice something or other. In the close-knit Arab community, news traveled fast and Mona felt embarrassed. She always thought that she and Tariq Jaber would be together forever, but sadly, it was not to be. The charming young man whom Mona had loved back in her native Dubai was gone, replaced by a controlling creep.
"I'm not attracted to you anymore, Mona, you're fat, your ass is huge, and you fart all the damn time," Tariq Jaber said to Mona, as they sat inside Dr. Ahmed Ali's office. The tall, dark-skinned and ruggedly handsome African-Canadian Muslim psychiatrist stroked his goatee and bristled at the words that Tariq Jaber had used with his wife. If you were mine I'd never treat you this way, Dr. Ahmed Ali thought, looking piteously at Mona.
"Tariq, let's be civil, please," Dr. Ahmed Ali said, and the bearded, angry-looking Arab man shrugged, and grinned as Mona began to cry. Exasperated, Tariq got up and walked out of the psychiatrist's office, ranting about what a waste of time the whole psychiatry business was. After Tariq left, the good doctor looked at Mona, who was still weeping.
"Tariq is going to leave me, I can't lose weight and I'm the gassiest woman on the planet," Mona whined, and Dr. Ahmed Ali sighed. The forty-something psychiatrist, born in the City of Mogadishu, Somalia, and raised in the environs of Toronto, Ontario, forced himself to be calm. It took all of his self-control and the training afforded by the Department of Psychiatry at his alma mater, McGill University, not to get up and go after Tariq. Why did the lousiest men in the world have to be married to such lovely and vulnerable women? One of the mysteries of the universe, as far as Dr. Ahmed Ali was concerned.
"Mona, listen to me, you're a beautiful woman and there's nothing wrong with your weight or your, ahem, health issues, you need to get Tariq out of your life because he's abusive," Dr. Ahmed Ali said firmly, and Mona Habib nodded hesitantly. The psychiatrist looked at his forlorn patient, and then, in a rare break from protocol, he gently pulled her into his arms and hugged her. If only I could protect you from the world, Dr. Ahmed Ali thought.
