The Hand of Fate

[Syriana Spencer]

It was a very hard for her to have come this far. So much time, money, brain power, and will power had brought her to the point where she was now. Standing in front of a large building that brought back such happy memories, along with a few she couldn't remember, she felt a sense of acomplishment, especially knowing she was about to become the happiest woman in all the word. Or at least Chicago!

Syriana Spencer had done so much to reach the goals she had set for herself, as well as her parents, and although they were still unsure about how well she'd do here with such a lowsy profession, well, lowsy to them. Being alumni of Northwestern University and to turn around and come teach here was something she had never thought of doing, however graduating the top of her class with two degree's in art and in art history was a grand feat for her. Something she did not take light heartedly.

She had butterflies, worse than the day she stood in the exact same spot wondering if she could even do college here. But somehow this time it was a flutter of butterflies that was exciting, that tickled her, that sent shivers down her spine. All of which she welcomed with such opened arms. She smiled and pulled the small tan leather shoulder bag up on her shoulder, her beautiful blakc pant suit pressed to the nines, a tan shirt that matched her bag (this not being an accident), she lifted her head. With a small shake of her head to free her eyes from the small drape of blonde hair she lifted her chin high with a smile and walked up into the large admissions building where she'd meet with the President of the university to get her schedule's, her roster, and her office key.

It was nearing ten in the morning and she could already feel her small breakfast wearing off as she walked into the very dark lobby, her leather heels echoing as she walked down the marble flooring to the office on the right. She remembered being there so many times that it was almost like it was fate she'd be wandering back there to work. She smiled at the young receptionist, a woman who had replaced her old friend Heather. The small name plate read Lidia A. Paltrow. Syriana looked up at the woman who was smiling.

"May I help you?" The robust redhead asked with pearly whites that blinded anyone who was to see. With a small grin, Syriana nodded, her right hand grasping the small strap of her bag, the other touching the desk.

"Mm. Yes. I have an appoitment with President Hugh Leonard." The young woman nodded and glanced down at her computer, typing furiously as if her life depended on it. The woman turned in her desk chair over to the phone and typed in, what Syri guessed to be, the extension. A small mumbled words were barely audible and the sound of the phone hanging up brought Syriana out of gazing around the bright room.

"Go on back to room 321, take a seat by the door. He'll be with you in a moment." With a thanks, Syriana did as the woman asked, walking down the small hallway to the office she remembered going into during her internship. She took a seat in the chair and placed her bag beside her. How she loved this place.

As she waited, the sound of raised voices caught her attention. Who was it? Being of the curoius type, she figured there wasn't any harm in eavesdropping, but they were talking so loud she wondered if anyone couldn't listen in.

Of course, she'd hear a 'shsh' here and there, but it was obvious the President was engaged in some sort of battle with someone, a very unhappy someone.

[Fadil Al-Zahari]

This was proposterous. He had never heard such bull in all his life! Ever! Especially from a man who had hired him due to his background and due to his evident intelligence on the matter of World History. However, it was apparent, that he had judged the man incorrectly. He was standing in the prescense of a selfish man who was saving his job rather than saving the intelligence of the students that participated in his class. Of course, he realized after the first two hours, that this arguing was not helping anything and the man was not budging. But, by hell, Fadil Al-Zahari was not to budge either!

"This is madness!" He yelled at the top of his lungs, not caring who heard, who listened, who bardged in...anything! He wasn't getting his point across by being polite, and being polite was Fadil's favorite thing to do when in discussions. But not now, not today, not after what he was hearing from this ridiculous man who cared nothing about others. Not even his good friend.

"Do you realize what you are saying to me? Do you? I cannot stop being myself! I will not do it! I will not! You can threaten me all you want, but I refuse to stop practicing because it makes some people here, as you say, 'scared'. I will not." The man in the relaxed form behind his desk, arms behind his head, was infuriating Fadil. How dare his friend of three years lean back as if he didn't care what he thought or what he said. Sure he'd agree, but he'd end up giving a shrug, letting Fadil know that this went far beyond respecting people's requests and comfort. This went to an entirely different thing. Fadil knew what it was, so did Hugh. This was completely against all rules in the handbook he received upon being hired here.

Fadil stood up, not wanting to listen to the fat man speak to him, with his repugnant cheap cologne and his haughty sense of being the man to know. He pointed at the floor as he spoke, his passion easily seen by anyone who was to walk by the large picture glass window overlooking the quad.

"I am standing my ground on this, Hugh." He hated formalities, unless with someone he didn't know, but perhaps he was realizing that he didn't know his friend at all. "You always told me you'd respect me and what I do, but this is the highest betrayal's I have ever felt." He knew it wasn't leaving much room for discussion, especially when he turned towards the door, ignoring the President's calling for him, saying he was acting like a fool.

All Fadil knew was that if being himself was being a fool, then he'd gladly accept it and say it proudly.

"I am not!" He yelled out, defending himself one last time while thrusting the door open. In his rise in anger, those thoughts of wanting to spit out hard words that could end his career, he spat out:

"Yūladu jamī'u n-nāsi aḥrāran mutasāwīna fī l-karāmati wa-l-ḥuqūq!" He turned to walk out of the room, only to stop shy when he looked up to find a woman standing within inches of him, a bag clutched in her arms, bright blue eyes wide as could be. Apparently she had been sitting in the waiting chair's for quite some time. Also, at the wrong time.

He looked at her once, breifly, not taking anything to heart at what he saw. He scoffed, not directly at her, but just at everything in general and brushed by her, not caring if he knocked her twenty feet. He didn't want to see anyone other than his own species at this moment. After all, it seemed the people he worked with on this campus had the same inclination. Muslim's were not wanted on this campus teaching history.

[Syriana Spencer]

Syriana was winded for a moment as the man brushed by her, her heels giving her quite the disadvantage when he knocked her causing her to fall back into the wall a few inches from her back.

When the door had swung open she stood up in a fright, not wanting to seem like she had been sitting there for quite some time listening in on the conversation going on between the president and this man. She just wanted to seem like she had just got to the door. She felt like a deer caught in headlights when the door was pulled open with such hard force. The man had said something nasty to the president in some middle eastern language, it sounded Persian, or was it Arabic? Either way she wasn't quite sure considering the only language she knew was English. It was hard and it was complicated and she wondered how the man said...well...whatever he said! When he turned around to walk out in a hurry he was stopped. By her.

Syriana had meant to move back from him and almost fell to the ground when she saw him heading in her direction. Luckily he had sense her presence and he had stared at her briefly. She felt fright all throughout her body when he looked at her, his big doeful eyes staring at her with disgust. She wasn't sure if it had been directed at her or not, but she figured it wasn't considering he hadn't had the time to really get a look at her to find her slightly disgusting.

Now, leaning against the wall, her heart pounding a mile a minute in her chest, aside from a hauntingly beautiful pair of honey brown eyes, the only thing that lingered was the scent of a classic cologne annd fading footsteps. Syriana had the urge to turn her head to watch him walk away from the offices, but she didn't, thinking blindly staring at the floor would do the trick.

She jumped at the sound of her name and she glanced up to find her old President walking to the door with a big warm smile, arms extended to embrace her in a hug. She smiled, suddenly the fear and the surprise flying away from her.

"Hello, Hugh! How are you?" The man laughed as she walked into the bright tope colored room. They did embrace for a moment as she met him halfway at the door. The man proceeded to tell her he was doing good and to ignore the display of intolerance. A word he used to fancy back in the day while she helped him in the office.

"It is all right," She said with a smile as the man closed the door and she found the leather seat right across from the man's mahogany desk. If she didn't know better she'd say his office was a library in the White House, it's oval shape and it's rich tones of brown and tan. Photos of all the previsous president's lining one wall. "It isn't everyday I get to hear....Hebrew." She changed her thoughts on the language again.

"Actually, Syri, it was Arabic." Her mind nodded in agreement, letting herself know that her second guess had been correct. She knew it had to have been something from the middle east. Afterall, if you didn't know it in the way the man had talked, it was definitely a give away when one saw his darkened complexion.

"Oh, well, Arabic!" She smiled and watched the man take a seat.

"That, my dear, was one of the men you'll be working with. His name is Fadil Al-Zahari. He teaches World History although you wouldn't know it by the way he always seems to focus on one damned place."

"Middle eastern history?" She wrecklessly said.

"Even better, the history of Iran. Son of a gun never shuts up about it. Enough about him! Congratulations! You are now our top Professor of Art History!"

[Fadil Al-Zahari]

Peace. That was all he wanted right then at that moment, but he knew he wouldn't be getting it anytime soon. He had to work late tonight, grade many papers, prepare a study guide for his 100 plus student,s prepare the 100 plus test's. It always seemed to be such madness around this time of the semester. Luckily, the session was almost over and a new one was to start soon. He was tired of this class, they were all so introverted and afraid to speak. How he hated it. Thankfully there had been a few who made his classes enjoyable, but he really did dislike it when he'd ask questions, or wanted opinions, only to be answered by silence and coughs.

Fadil hadn't wanted much out of life except to teach about what he knew, what he loved, but it seemed things were becoming more difficult after 2001. His teaching's were no longer appreciated, his prescense no longer wanted. He didn't feel like he had any right to whine or complain, but he somehow felt that things had changed after the horrendous acts that had happened back in New York City. He sighed out as she sat on the small tree bench on the quad, leaning his on his elbows while glancing around at the beautiful green campus, hearing a few students here and there laughing or talking or walking on by. His prescense going unnoticed. Strange, that too was happening more and more frequently now that he thought about it.

A sigh graced his lips and he lowered his head slightly to stare down at the ground, frowning when he saw a small discolored object on the side of his brown leather shoe. He ran it along the grass, watching it smear off to his delight, if there was anything he hated it was having his clothes somehow messed up. Sure he wasn't a top model or even a man known for his great fashion sense, but he enjoyed trying to clean up nicely. Especially when he recalled his younger years of living back in his home country.

Fadil suddenly felt self conscious and began to observe his clothing starting with his brown pants and making his way up to his blue shirt and matching brown blazer. He sighed out realizing he was starting to become almost as paranoid as everyone else. He didn't understand why this was happening to him. He didn't understand much of anything anymore and it was beginning to stress him out. He could tell he was beginning to sprout grey hairs as if the patches already embedded in his short thin beard wasn't enough. He sighed and ran his hands through his thick chestnut brown hair, wondering what he was going to do since he was considering the request, more like demand, from his friend and the President of the college. How could a man stop practicing his religion? Well, he wasn't stopping his religion, but when he is to pray five times a day it made things very difficult when it frightened other people. What? He never paid any attention to anyone other than Allah, his praying, his salah. It was otherwise invalid if his heart and mind were not focused on the Almighty. How was he harming anyone by pausing in his room to perform? How? Nobody was in class during the times he prayed, most people were still eating lunch when he performed the first prayer. It was highly discriminatory.

He knew there was no need to stress, that people would just have to accept him for who he was, although, nowadays, he was beginning to believe that perhaps he wasn't himself at all. He was becoming like them.

[Syriana Spencer]

It had been a rather busy week for Syriana. After the odd occurences that had happened a week ago at the college, and the rude brush off, she had been getting used to having staff meetings, preperations to get everyone up to speed on the new curriculum. Her class having been one of the most anticipated additions according to a few people she had met during the rather formal events. Last night was the dinner party that they had at the beginning of every session to allow new, as well as old, professors to mingle. She had come to find out that it simply was an endless benfit that caused her to endure many speeches from the President, the Dean, amongst many other head honcho's of the college, while eating their superb lobster and steak dishes. Afterwards, by the time everyone was slightly feeling good after too many champagne toasts, they all would be able to chat amongst themselves.

Syriana, always loving a good dinner and drink, had been incredibly nervous. She and two other men were the newest additions, her class being completely new, while the others were replacing old retired chemistry and anatomy professor's. It hadn't been the best party she had attnded, afterall nothing seemed to beat the parties she had back in her college days. This was rather boring and a waste of her time. Everyone who worked there was twice her age and she hadn't the slightest idea what to discuss with them, her mind having drawn a blank due to fear. Luckily for her, as the night wore on, she had had a wee bit too much to drink and ended up mingling quite well.

All she rememebered today, the first day of the session for professors, was that she had one too many and she had become quite the flirt, even with men half her age. She had awoken to the sound of rolling thunder and a splitting headache. Also, a cocktail napkin with three phone numbers on it. She was thankful, by the time she got out of bed, that she had come home alone. Syriana was out of character and she knew that if she was going to be successful and highly reguarded as the best, she realized she'd be skipping little benefit parties like the one the night before.

All she could think now, as she sat in her large classroom, was that it was not good to be hungover on the job. Of course this wasn't hard work considering classes weren't to start until three days from now, today being the day when professors set up shop in their new classroom's and got syllabus's ready. She had spent most of her morning personalizing her space, filling the empty bookcase on the only empty wall with art books, art prints, amongst other things she enjoyed. This campus being so old and being rehabilitated to remain classic, she had a large room with many desks, two walls of large french windows, and a fifteen foot wide blackboard. It was, to say the least, nice to stray away from the stench of whiteboard markers.

She was also enjoying the big french windows looking out at the tree strewn quad and being able to watch it rain heavily, the grey tint shining throughout her room. Her head was hurting so bad earlier she had decided the lights would stay off and she was thankful for those windows.

She sighed out as she pushed a piece of hair out of her eye, her mind finally straying from her class syllabus after having revised it three times in the past hour. She pulled off her sleek thing framed glasses and put them onto the table, leaning back in her comfortable rolling chair. She glanced over the room, freshly waxed floors reflecting everythig like a pool. A smile graced her lips as she thought of how weird it felt to be on the other side of things. It was exciting, yet she knew how she felt when coming into general education classes. She hated it, but she just hoped that someone would enjoy her teaching.

The small tapping on the door brought her attention away from mindless thoughts of yesteryear over to the doorway that was being shadowed by an all too familiar face. The President. He was quite fond of her and it was bothersome. Anytime she was in a moment of zen, he'd somehow show up to ruin it for her.

"After noon." She said with a smile, as always.

"After noon," He walked into the room and already she was smelling his sickening cologne, her head not stopping. "I understand this if your first time here at NU, I do, but I have to admit last night your behavior made me question your loyalties." Syriana sat there staring at him, wondering if the pot bellied man had practiced this speech. Her first day on the job and already she was not getting brownie points. She wanted to say something in her defense, but felt it wasn't necessary and she simply nodded.

"I understand, I wasn't watching what I did."

"Yes I know." Syriana looked up at the beady eyes man and slit her eyes, was he picking a fight? She couldn't tell, but something about the way he looked and sounded made it feel like he was personally wanting to attack her. "I need to get his straight right away, alcoholism is not permitted within this facility. I know it was a party last night, but we have a certain set of guidelines we want our professors to follow." Guidelines? Was he serious? She nodded listening to him continue with his apologies for the personal attack, as she was calling it, and kept nodding and smiling.

"Yes, I understand. It won't happen anytime soon, President Leonard." The man smiled after a moment. He sighed out with a haughty sense of putting her in her place. He frowned and sat a piece of paper on her desk and pointed.

"There are some thigns for you to look over. I am having to run all over this campus giving lectures to misbehaved adults!" He didn't say much and as she grabbed the paper and looked up to laugh at his unfunny remark he was already out the class. What? Was he a parent to all these people? It was a party, people drank, people got a little silly, no harm done! She sighed out, understanding where he was coming from, but in the way he said it made it seem like a father was scolding a child.

She shook her head and rolled her eyes, remembering how serious he took things. She glanced at the paper and frowned.
"What?" She said to herself. "Minimum requirements for syllabi curriculum? What?" She stood up after reading it several times. "Is this supposed to make sense?" She frowned and looked around her desk as if the answer to what that sentence meant were there. But she knew it wasn't.

"President Leonard?" She callled out, standing up from her chair and jogging towards the door, her patent leather heels clicking loudly in the empty hallways. "President Leonard?" She walked to the door and peeked out to find he wasn't anywhere in sight.
She muttered a curse and walked down the hall to where she figured he might have gone. There were a total of ten classrooms in the hallway, but knew only three were open. She hadn't seen anyone in them, but she figured they might have been on their lunch break when she had gone to use the restroom. She walked down the hall, hoping that perhaps one of the other professor's could explain. She heard small mutterings coming from one room on the right, heading towards the front doors.She didn't see a light, but she knew someone was in the room.

Syriana slowed her walking as she approached the door and slowly walked into view seeing nobody, but hearing something. She frowned and knocked on the doorframe. She jumped when a man's head appeared from behind the desk facing the seats. It had been the man who had bumped into her rudely not but a week ago.

[Fadil Al-Zahari]

He opened his eyes slowly as he heard the small rapping at the door. He had been bothered enough already that morning and he hadn't really wanted to be bothered yet again, but he figured three hours had been far too long for Hugh Leonard and he must come bug him yet again. Thankfully, Fadil thought, his prayers were done. He slowly slipped his white crocheted Gahfiyyah cap off and slowly leaned up from his kneeling position. He glanced over his desk to find, not who he had thought, but the newest addition to this madnhouse of professor's. Great. he thought to himself, another person to dislike my duties.

"Yes?" He said as he slowly stood up, bringing his prayer blanket with him and rolling it up as he made his way behind his desk, not making eye contact with the woman as he was determined to put everything into his desk before Hugh Leonard popped in to complain.

Fadil hadn't recalled actually meeting the woman, nor could he even remember her name even though the night before a few people had been ackowledging her. He hadn't really the mind to get to know anyone at that moment, he had gotten an earful of how he was about to get an ultimatum for Leonard if the prayer's didn't stop. H eknew it was discriminatory, however something was protecting everyone from getting sued had he the mind if he were to be fired.

"Can I help you?" He questioned as he finally looked over at her standing in the doorway as if she were at the entrance of a darkened cave where within a big bad bear resided. Something in her blue eyes struck him as odd. Was she actually afraid of him? Already? They had barely met! Suddenly he remembered, this was the woman he had screamed in front of and pushed her aside while exiting the main office. He had a mind to apologize, but figured it could wait until he could get a handle on what she wanted.

[Syriana Spencer]

She was surprised he had even stopped doing..whatever it was he was doing to talk to her. After a moment of realization that he was talking to her she raised an eyebrow and looked around the hal before stepping into the darkened room, making her way towards his desk. He was rolling up some sort of blanket and she put two and two together, the man had been praying. She suddenly felt bad for walking in on him, but figured had he not wanted to help her he wouldn't have gotten up. She stopped in front of his desk, looking at him to find he was glancing at her.

"Yes, can you tell me what this means?" She turned the paper around and held it out towards him. "President Leonard just came into my room and told me I needed to read this." She laughed lightly when the man took it. "I don't understand what that means." Syriana was a non-confrontational kind of woman, slightly extroverted, a tad outgoing, but in new situations with new faces it frightened her. Everything about this job scared her to death simply because she knew nothing, knew nobody, and fear of screwing up in some way. To not understand what that paper meant she felt ignorant.

The man made a noise and she could see the distinct annoyance in his chestnut eyes. Flecks of gold being hit by the dark light outside as he glanced up to meet her own.