Another piece of creative writing inspired by social-networking technology. I hope it makes you smile.
By T. Hauge
Nanda Abhaya Shahi*
sent me a request to be friends on Facebook this morning.
I admit, I laughed when I read the Email. It looked so funny on my computer screen.
"Nanda Abhaya Shahi added you as a friend. . ."
Nanda Abhaya Shahi.
I was sidetracked by the sound of those syllables. How could I resist repeating them?
It was as good as a mantra.
Nanda Abhaya Shahi.
Nanda Abhaya Shahi.
He sounded like a swami or poet.
Now let me explain that I've never heard of the guy,
but he looked quite respectable
in his profile picture the size of a postage stamp,
standing next to his sari-draped wife.
It occurred to me, that maybe it wasn't Nanda Abhaya Shahi
sending me the invitation. Maybe it was his doppelganger
or one of his personalities.
Did the voices tell him to invite me?
Or maybe he was just trying to reach out across
cultural barriers.
Maybe he was marketing his new restaurant.
Maybe he liked my profile picture.
Maybe the invitation was spontaneously generated
by his computer and was the beginning
of a rogue computer dalliance through Facebook!
Maybe the forces of the universe were inviting me to some new, exotic destiny with the Shahis.
Does he even exist, or is his profile a front, for a mole trying to infiltrate the Democratic Lawyers Council of Utah to which I belong?
Maybe he was an ordinary, middle-class, happily married husband who was building a multilevel marketing company and thought I could be in his downline.
Maybe Nanda had mistaken me for one of the Norway Hauges--the Norweigan bachelor Muslim branch of the family.
Maybe Nanda was from the distant future and Facebook was the only way he could contact me. Maybe the future would be irreparably altered by our Facebook connection.
After considering these and many more possibilities, I quickly clicked "Ignore," as I always do with strangers.
If I get any messages from the future, I'll be sure to let you know, unless my existence is deleted, in which case you will not be reading this poem.
*Not his real name. I'm sure the real subject of this poem wouldn't appreciate being called a mole or worse, a doppelganger.
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