‘You are so lazy son,’ my mother always says this to me and I keep telling myself she probably exaggerates a little, for lazy is not the word that describes a guy like me. I just like the easy way in doing things. That is all. I am that kind of person, nothing more, nothing less. I guess I am born to relax and take my time. I do not want to rush things as many people do these days. My colleagues at the university get their Ph.D’s in two years or less. I did it in ten years. I would do it in twelve or twenty years if I could, but the academic regulations wouldn’t allow such a luxury as they claim. I always believe life is not going to fly, so one should slow down a bit. In my childhood, among all the fruit, I liked dates best. I would either climb the palm tree as my mates and the monkeys did, or just stand near the tree and throw stones at the dates and they fall down beneath my feet. I preferred the second way. I followed this way at school. I preferred short stories to novels. I didn’t understand how a writer spend a year or more to write a novel and felt terrified to read Tolostoy’s War and Peace. But I liked the novella type of fiction and enjoyed very much reading Hemingway’s The Old Man and the Sea, although I would never do the hard work the old man did. To volunteer to do a hard work that requires you to move around and to sweat is – of course – out of question even if it involves food as it occurred in high school when four of my friends and I went on a trip to a forest nearby our school. At lunch time, we decided to cook our meal,and one of us volunteered to go shopping. Another one decided to cut the wood, whereas the third chose to set the fire and the fourth promised to cook.

‘And how about you, Smart? What will you do?,’ they asked.

‘Well,’ I replied. ‘Since nothing is left for me to do, I guess I will sit and eat!’ Eating is my favorite hobby and next to it is sleeping. The two of them are closely related in my life. I eat and eat till I sleep at the table. In my sleep, I always dream of visiting eating places like markets, restaurants, bars and coffee shops. I also dream of living at the bank of a river and having a giant’s body with hands as long as a palm tree, so that when I feel hungry I dip my hand into the river and catch a fish, and then I lift it to the eye of the sun to roast it and then I eat it bit by bit till I sleep. Also, I wish to have King Solomon’s ring, or Aladdin’s magic lamp, so that I rub any of them when I like, and the genie comes to bring me whatever food and drinks I order. Then I eat and eat till I sleep in the bank of the river. Then the genie – and of course it would be nice if it was a pretty girl – carries me to my bed. In the morning, instead of walking to school which is a couple of miles away from my house, I drive my car, or better still, I hire a chauffeur to do the driving. When this idea crossed my mind, I imagined my mother looking at me and saying her favorite words which she likes to repeat again and again,

‘You never change, Smart! You still the same as before!’ I do not feel like to argue. ‘She is right, I guess. My mother knows me better than I know myself.’ I said to myself, and smiled as I began to fall asleep.