"This is so wrong," Samuel Senghor thought to himself, as he looked at the beautiful woman slumbering next to him. Was there anything worse than a man hooking up with his best friend's mother? Lying on the bed, her curvaceous body stark naked, a fine sheen of sweat oozing out of her forehead, Fariba Nazari looked quite lovely. The years had been kind to her, and at fifty, she looked better than most of the young women whom Samuel routinely saw at the Ryerson University campus.
Rising from the bed, Samuel yawned and stretched as he headed to the bedroom window. It was four o'clock in the morning, and it was still dark. Outside, the Toronto nighttime skyline glittered, a marveling matrix of lights and shadows representing the largest metropolitan area in all of Canada. After living in the City of Toronto, Ontario, for the past five and a half years, Samuel considered himself as much a Torontonian as, say, Canadian celebrities like Drake, Neil Young or Lights.
Samuel had come a long way from his humble beginnings in the City of Richard Toll, northern Senegal. An orphan raised by Christian Missionaries in an old-fashioned orphanage, Samuel grew up poor and dreamed of something more. Academically gifted, Samuel won every prize there was to win at school, thanks to his high marks in every subject, particularly mathematics and the sciences. The Missionaries, especially an old Frenchman named Father Daniel Lemieux, encouraged Samuel to pursue education outside of Senegal.
Samuel Senghor had been taking English and French classes at the orphanage for a long time and was fluent in both languages by the time he turned eighteen. That's why he applied to the University of Toronto in Ontario, Canada. The University of Toronto was suitably impressed by the confident young scholar, and offered him one of the international student spots in its Civil Engineering program. Samuel Senghor came to Canada on a student visa...and never left.
Although Samuel would never forget the land of his birth, after living in the G.T.A. for half a decade, he had come to think of Toronto as his home. It had a lot to do with the friendships and relationships he'd cultivated since coming to the G.T.A. One of the first people he met was Salim Nazari, a cocky and charming young man originally from the City of Zaranj, Afghanistan. This friendship would in time become the source of one of the defining events of Samuel's life.
Even though Samuel Senghor and Salim Nazari came from different worlds, they became fast friends after their initial meeting on Orientation Day at Ryerson University. They were both Civil Engineering majors, and big-time nerds. Fast forward five and a half years, and Samuel was an alumnus of Ryerson University, where he obtained his Civil Engineering degree, and he'd recently become a Permanent Resident of Canada. Soon he'd have citizenship, and then his career and life would be on the ascent.
Unfortunately, fate had other plans for Salim Nazari, who was currently serving a life sentence at the Kingston Penitentiary in the environs of Kingston, Ontario. A terrible tragedy had befallen the Nazari family after the death of Salim's father Omar Nazari, the family patriarch. After the old died due to the ravages of cancer, chaos ensued. The family's finances suffered, and Salim had to drop out of school to help his mother and sister.
There was trouble brewing on the home front in the Nazari household, and it had nothing to do with finances. As is the case in many immigrant families, values between the Old World and the West caused clashes among family members. Salim's older sister Azita met a young Irish guy named Liam O'Keefe while studying at the University of Toronto. A whirlwind romance followed, and the two of them got engaged. Sadly, their love story would not have a happy ending.
Salim did not approve of his sister Azita's relationship with Liam, on account of Liam being a non-Muslim, and a foreigner at that. Salim wanted his sister to marry a man from their faith and culture. Although Samuel talked to Salim and tried to get him to give the young couple a chance, Salim grew to hate both his sister and her lover. It got to the point that after Salim made death threats against Azita and Liam, they went to the police and obtained a restraining order against him. For the three of them, events would soon take a drastic, downright tragic turn.
Salim Nazari grew up in rural Afghanistan, where antiquated notions of family honor still prevail to this day. When his sister Azita continued to date Liam, he saw it as an affront to the Nazari family honor. One night, he snuck into the Mississauga apartment that Liam and Azita shared, and killed both of them in their sleep. Salim was subsequently arrested by the Toronto Police Service, tried in Criminal Court and sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. The harshest sentence that any Canadian court had ever handed out since the country abolished the death penalty ages ago.
Samuel was saddened over what happened to his buddy Salim, whom he remembered as a friendly, generous and super chill guy. Salim wasn't the murderous psychopath that the western media made him out to be. Samuel preferred to think of his old friend as a misguided soul who made a few mistakes. The Canadian media sensationalized the murder trial of Salim Nazari, and a discussion about Muslim immigrants, women's rights and honor killings gripped Canadian society. Samuel missed Salim, but his friend's fate was sealed.
The greatest tragedy of all was Fariba Nazari's fate. In the same year, the matriarch of the Nazari family lost her husband to cancer, her daughter to an honor-motivated murder at the hands of her own brother, and her son to the criminal justice system. Out of concern for Fariba, Samuel began checking up on her once in a while. All of a sudden, the lovely lady had no one. Her husband was dead. Her daughter was dead. And her son was serving life in prison. Samuel feared that Fariba Nazari might kill her herself, and one tragic night, she came tragically close to doing just that...
"Don't do it," Samuel said to Fariba, as he watched her on the rooftop of her building, about to jump. He'd come by the house for a visit, and having found the place unlocked, he searched for her. When Fariba didn't answer her cell phone, Samuel considered calling the cops, then took a look around the building. Some instinct made him check the roof, where he found the lovely, teary-eyed Muslim matriarch about to end her life...
"Sammy, I've got nothing to live for, my family is all gone," Fariba said, shaking her head. Samuel looked at her, astonished to see her this distraught. Carefully he stepped close to the ledge, until he was only two meters from her. Samuel remembered Fariba as a strong woman who was passionate about her Islamic faith and loved her family. To lose them was a terrible blow to her. Still, he had to find a way to get her safely off the ledge...
"Lady Fariba, that's not true, your son Salim is my best friend and he needs you more than ever, heck, I need you, you and your family are my oldest friends in Canada," Samuel said, and Fariba looked at him, smiling sadly. She looked at the ground below, and Samuel held his breath. If Fariba tried to jump, he'd have to move fast to catch her, lest she drag both of them off the ledge. The lady looked into his eyes, and whatever she saw in there seemed to convince her.
