My regular from Lebanon cancelled amid Iran–Israel Tension

He usually sends one line: “Same time?” That’s it. We never need to go over details. He knows the building, the floor, and the exact time the light hits the windows in Business Bay. It’s always incall. He lands in Dubai, arrives quietly, and leaves the same way. There’s a kind of rhythm to people like him measured, low-key, never late.

This time, he was supposed to visit on Friday, I had everything arranged the way he likes it clean linen, dim light, no sound. But the message that came wasn’t like him: “The situation between Iran and Israel is making it too uncertain. I’ll need to cancel.”

There was no emotion in it. Just the facts. But I felt the pause between us. He wasn’t nervous just careful. Someone who moves in silence doesn’t like turbulence in the air or politics on the ground and while I understood it, I still looked at the clock when the hour came, expecting it to pass like it always did unnoticed but complete.

The door never opened. The silence stretched longer than the appointment would have lasted. I didn’t reach out again. I’ve learned when to wait and when to let go. Dubai kept moving outside my windows, as always. Some nights end without a knock and that’s okay. It doesn’t mean they won’t return.