Laila
I stand on the balcony; watching. I know he is looking; sat behind the curtain of the facing window. The guilt he will feel is all part of my amusement; that guilt mixed with desire; a heady mix. It is enough today just to stand here and know he is intent upon me. The fact that he's ugly just makes it easier; I have no wish to ever meet him, or any of the others. I know they beat the streets in the night, desperate to locate my building. They can only see the back of it and there are many half built sites and rubbish dumps inbetween, along with street vendors and other flats.
They cannot know how my lip curls with a twisted thought of how surprised they would be if they 'found' me. As the dawn stretches out across the lap of this city I imagine them stealing into my room and how I would be waiting, the chasm of me ready for them to fall into; a black melaya to cover their descent. I am that dark goddess. I am that which lures and devours, for I am their own making.
Thus I was created, pushed down as I was birthed, my light too terrifying for man to behold. I watched the fault being placed at my mother's feet, my aunt's, my sister's – I saw the gender jigsaw and how each person held a piece; some willingly, some not.
I heard the distance of my father - a road that could not be travelled - and devised theories as to why. So, I set about to please him and every man, my graciousness a flower. Until one day I snapped, or maybe finally stopped being able to support myself, or allowed myself to accept wholly that no one person cherished or loved me enough to stay with me, day in, day out. The exact lines of thought are blurred but certainly I lost a belief and then further beliefs, until I became functional only, without an idea of intimacy or relationship to sustain me.
This morning I sent a man into disarray when walking past the furniture shop near my home. It doesn't take much; just the sight of my behind, with no long cardigan covering the trouser, and a quick one timed glance at the carved matrimonial bed on display. I could feel him; feel his urgency and just to make sure I checked the reflection in the window – yes, he was hooked alright.
I left him to his straining and took a right onto Sharee Malik, the street of kings, where I mused on the fallen figs covering the litter strewn ground. Those figs were not like the ones I tasted in my youth; rich fleshed fruits that excited my mouth and made my eyes half close with future knowing. Those hot days sat under the one full tree we could find; me and the other girls; wriggling in our embalments, heat rashes spreading. We would peel the delicacies for each other; libations of sacred friendships; promises to ourselves of our coming womanhood. We would hum songs, the songs we heard our mothers and aunts sing, weaving word tapestries in order to understand their stories. And then I remembered Noha's kiss.
Noha, honey coloured star, a laugh that sparkled in its innocence, eyes deeper than belief, Noha, oh how we would share secrets by the running water, as if the river would take our hidden truths and cleanse them. But the rushing over the stones on that bed took more than words. It hadn't even been a proper kiss, not like the ones we'd seen on the screen when we'd snook a look, running in the doors of the cinema, whilst doing errands for our mothers. No, it hadn't been a proper kiss, but it had made us both lay back onto the spring meadow grass, eyes closed, holding hands. It hadn't been a proper kiss but young Sherif believed it was and he told Hossam who whispered it to Karim who told everyone in the village.. and the two of us were shamed. Noha's smile disappeared along with her freedom and then Noha herself.. into the water's embrace, they found her two days later, a flower held in her rigoured hand.
'Heh, ya amar!', I'm pulled back into the audio onslaught of the street. I must get back inside; Baba's anise tea will need giving roundabout now. Strange how even in the midst of senility he knows his timings. 'The things that keep us rooted', But rooted to what? I have less sense of identity now than ever. Half here, always half.. since Noha's step into the dark water; nothing has ever been whole. The childhood I knew is almost a fable; somebody else's story. And now Baba sits staring into a meaning that never comes; that proud face, a mask.
When Mrs Khalil painted her outside wall purple only days after Ramadan there were concerns in the community. Did it have to be such a strong purple? Could it not be lighter, a hint within white, could the inside of her window blind not be purple instead so as to allow the other tenants in the building a calmer feeling?
A meeting was held but Mrs Khalil stood firm. She had had enough. Her husband had been without work for months then had taken a job as a taxi driver and started to drive further and further out of the vicinity. Eventually his wanderings took him to Lake Qarun where he said he had deepened his connection with God, may His name be sacred, and he felt it was his calling now to serve his faith as a fisherman. Mrs Khalil had smelt the cheap perfume on his clothes the last time he was home. She didn't demand any alternative explanations. She just packed his things into a travelling case, made him food for some days ahead, said goodbye with her eyes and then the next day painted her wall.
'It's my wall, Mr Hassan, I like it this colour.'
'Gracious Mrs Khalil, this wall is seen by us all, please re-think your decision for the sake of public decency.'
What happened then no-one had any preparation for. Mrs Khalil laughed and she didn't stop. She didn't notice the people leaving the hall, she didn't hear the condemnations, the pleas, the prayers said on her behalf. She didn't even see her oldest son called to the scene, or the tears that fell from her daughter's eyes. She didn't realise that a steady stream of warm yellow was running down her legs and pooling onto the floor.
Mrs Khalil was a story I heard many times when I was growing up. The emphasis was that this was not what to be. That one had to defend against such a debasement of character; even when one was up against the wall; so to speak. God would provide. But what god was it that took Noha and pushed her down into the reed bed? What god was that?
You got the life Laila, you got to stay alive, so why don't you live? Why don't you Laila? Ya gameela, wahashteney, I miss you so much. I'll never see the spring flowers again or taste Mama's morning bread. I'll never get older. All the things I didn't get to do Laila, all the things, all the...
The bedsheets are wet, the night fevers plague me, Noha's voice is sweet in my ear, leaves a hollow in my heart. They come to me after the wind has finished its evening messages, after the dark corners of the house have mimicked me with stabbing shadows and after the last pretence of day has found itself unable to stay straight. They; the dead, the forgotten, the yearning ones. They push their regrets and abandoned hopes out into my long nights, until I cry for release. I tried pretending they weren't there, I tried all manner of prescription and non prescription drugs, I tried listening, I tried soothsayers, clairvoyants, exorcists, shrinks. But no matter what I did the night let them in like an undiscerning doorman.
I prowl my room, seeing faces in the contours of the walls, I shout at the stillness of the furniture, at the doorways. Dawn is an agonising gate I am forced to pass through each day; birthed into pain.
Today I am going to dress as a man. I decided this morning as I awoke that I would conduct this new experiment. They have no idea; they are unformed for this type of situation. They have their phrases and formulas for all types of women but cross genderism is something that might just stop them for a moment. I am almost giggling when I think about it. I will have a moustache and a phallus. I've been shaping one out of paper mache and practising my walk. It feels good. I like my swagger, I like this thing between my legs; my own thing. It feels like a self completion. I made my moustache out of my pubic hair; oh yes, I am a rare one; for I keep my body hair intact. My sisters sugar soap, wax, pluck and shave so as to please tradition, but I reject the man that rejects me. I bind my breasts. I am becoming the man. I am a deceptor. A flaunter. I am, I am, I am.
First I must get up and serve Baba his breakfast and make sure he has done his toilet; then I will go and change in my room and leave the house as Ahmed. I am a cocky Ahmed. I think about cars and girls and my mobile phone. I think my fake Armani t-shirt is my passport to success. I think my mother is above all else. I think most girls pretend they don't want it but I know they do and I know their trickery. I think there's one girl out there for me that is quiet and shy and won't look to the eyes of other men for false image. I won't even try to touch that girl. I'll propose to her after two weeks and wait until we are married and then when we are I won't ask her to do anything more than the missionary position.
The sun is exhausting the streets when I finally get out and the traffic is at its usual slow soup standstill. I take a right by GAD and wonder if I should get a tameya sandwich.. I want to eat and drink and fulfill myself. I look at the girls as they walk by and hiss remarks at the ones that look like they'd take it. I stop at a kiosk to get cigarettes and enjoy the puzzled look in the attendant's eye; 'Yes', I want to say, 'I defy you. What am I, little man? What the hell type of haram am I?'
I light a cigarette and inhale deeply; the toxins feel glorious. Suddenly, I feel horny. What would it be like? To be with a girl? And what type of girl would she be? I feel like walking down to Agouza and getting a prostitute; my blood is surging with the thought of it. I can hardly walk a straight line. Every single thought is burning up to become one idea; sex. I don't care about anything else. Suddenly a car beeps and I realise I am walking into its path; I jump out of Ahmed for some moments and feel like I've finally lost my mind. What am I doing on this street; dressed as a man; with a prosthetic penis and moustache? Do I really believe I can get a prostitute? Correction; am I really willing and wanting to go through with things to that degree? Ahmed feels unstoppable. I have unleashed him. And now what will be my fate?
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They
What's that? That there. That thing. Don't like it. Don't want it near, it's too near. I have to walk near the ahwa now, past the 2nd door, then back. Then again, till it's 3 times. 3 times. Have to do it 3 times. Because I don't like that thing and because it's time. I know it's time. I know it's time because the sun left. The sun left and I had my cigarette, so it's time. There's that girl again. That girl. One with blue eyes. Eyes like stars. I see her eyes and fly. That girl is Aisha. She doesn't know yet. When it is the days of a big fire moon she will know. She will know and she will look at me and I will fly. I will fly and be with God all my days. I told Saad that but he said I was bad talking. He say it's bad talking to say Aisha is on the street. But I know that girl is Aisha. And soon she will know too. Then maybe Saad will know. I had my 5 cigarettes today and Saad gave me 2 cups of tea. I had 3 sugars. Sometimes I have 2 sugars. The Doctor Eslam he said sugar is no good and he says he's upset with me. His face went sad and small when he said it. Like a little apple. But a funny apple. He said things about my feet. Maybe I wont have feet soon. Some people stop having feet he said. I said I dont like my feet. My feet hurt like bad things in them. Maybe the sihr is in my feet. I tried painting the eye there but I couldnt paint it. Saad said it was cos my brother put the sihr inside me and it wont let the eye there. Maybe I can put a big eye on my djellaba. But then people will look. I dont like them looking. I wear my hood. Saad says some people think I'm a man. I dont know what I am. He said men have pee pee thing and women don't. He says your mum and dad tell you when you are young. He says I'm a woman. He can see by my face too he says. I said I don't remember anyone telling me. He says women do different things than men. He says women's life is hard but men's life is harder. He says women and men always fighting like wasps at the end of hot time. I stand by the cars all day. Some people give me things. Madame Amal brings me water in morning time. She says I have to wash for God. She wants me to go inside. I say I wont go inside. Cos the sihr is stronger inside. I didnt go inside for long time. Maybe seven Ramadan times already. She wants to take my djellaba. She says I can wear new abaya but I told her I cant do that. I cant do that. There's that other cream girl. The one with hair like shams. She got shining bright hair. She stops near the cars and feeds cats. She carries plastic bags with food. She talks to them so soft like I remember my sister talking. But my sister had hair like night. This girl liked the dog too. But the dog got hurt. I saw Mustafa with that dog and he had a gun. I told Saad but Saad said I was sleep looking. I said I know what I saw. That dog was good. Now that girl looks for that dog. I try to tell her in the thinking way I do. I do the thinking way long time. Saad says it's better to talk. But when you talk people get angry and do bad things I said. It's better to do thinking way. It's time for walking now. My feet angry with the sihr inside. Madame Amal say she wants me to go inside again. She says she wants me to sleep in bed. I said it's not time. I have to stay outside for more time. Outside till Aisha knows she's Aisha. Then I will fly to God.
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The Accident Man
Things were different when I first came here. I had hopes. The kind of hopes that desperate people have; when all other hopes have been used up. The new hope becomes an obsession and my obsession was to be free and to rest. So I came to Cairo. Ha! Seems like a such a ridiculous thing now! I coulda stayed where I was, kept eating my Twinkie bars and doing this, doing that– but then, I couldn't – I couldn't rest there, knowing what I knew, so I went somewhere I knew nothing. I didn't have much money, but then I didn't think I needed much and anyways, I didn't have a choice about getting more. I thought I could piss my money up the wall a bit, hole up for a while in some seedy hotel, get some grade dope and disappear. I guess I was pretty far into a Midnight Express kind of scenario, minus the jail, I didn't have jail in the plan. Anyways, I got here and of course things were different. The hostels were mainly a mix of 'Visa card kids' and hustlers, with a few outsiders like myself down a musty corridor. On the streets I was seen as some kind of dollar sign; they took one look at my white face and assumed I had money. I guess the average street Joe, who has never stepped foot outside his country, doesn't realise that people like me are pretty low down the food chain ourselves. He doesn't see that I am a persona non gratis to the good ole American system. He doesn't know that I've played people myself for years and can spot his game from a long way away. But OK, a man has to make his way, just I don't wanna be hassled when I'm strolling down the corniche smoking my cigarette. A cigarette is kinda holy to a man. It buys him time. So anyways, one day I was sat minding my own in a bar downtown when this guy pops a little advice to me, he said I could make money teaching English. Well, I have to say I had never considered myself the kinda person that would teach but I liked the idea, it made me laugh, and the money sounded good. Turns out a lot of these private schools here they don't care about certificates or any of that business, in fact all they want is someone to make sure the kids are in one place and give 'em good marks so the parents keep paying the ching ching. But the place made me feel too contained, I couldn't do the do and the nights were eating me up. Some kind of twisted fate that a man earns enough to buy whiskey and then doesn't have the time to drink it. Anyhow purely on the basis of being from outside of this country people started asking me to teach them privately; parents seemed to think I could raise their kids' marks in subjects I knew nothing about, but who was I to say different? All it took was some good smoke and I would fly to my lessons and come up with any number of brilliant theories and false information. Sometimes I swear it was like I was channelling it and my pot boiled stories and faux facts would hit a truth wall. Problem was - the girls. These tricky 14 year olds, in their new hijabs, pouting with lipgloss. It made me feel wrong. That's all I can say. So by the 3rd lesson I was usually quitting and back to zero guineas. How I wish now I'd stuck it out – cos then I would never have met Sherif Ahmed.
I got an email a few weeks after my last paid job and a few minutes before becoming stony broke; 'Good day, I require Business English for my work and a friend said you could help', it began. So, knowing nothing about the subject at hand I emailed the guy back and set up the first lesson; with him willing to pay for ten classes in advance and all at a handsome price. I couldn't do much to celebrate since I was down to 20 LE but I got some kushari and had a few beers in the bar; one paid for by me and the other three courtesy of some happy drunks I got chatting with; gay boys in pink t-shirts and fake diamante watches. Oh the beautiful unsaid situations of this country; where boys hold hands and fawn over each other, even 'practise' for their wedding night, but no, no, no my friend – they are not gay!
The next day I went to Sherif Ahmed's home in Mohandeseen to start tutoring the course. I felt like shit and couldn't even conjugate my own verbs never mind help anyone else with theirs. The maid let me in and I was ushered into the hallway and then into a small room – a bedroom – and asked to wait. I looked around and felt a mix of puzzlement and dismay; there was a queen size bed with a non descript cover and upon it a horrifying cushion heart with 'armwings'. Other than this the room housed a dark wooden wardrobe, several cupboards and one small formica table. Three chairs were around it. The door opened and in came a burly man and a younger, slight woman - unveiled. The man greeted me with a firm handshake and an intent look. Sherif Ahmed, as it was him, looked ridiculously oversized for such a constrained bedroom and the stripes on his t-shirt were making me feel sick. He introduced me to his sister, Amina, saying that she also wanted a course and offering double the money for her to attend the same lessons. This was apparantly Amina's bedroom. We all seemed to feel uncomfortable. Due to my inherent twisted nature I found myself thinking about sex. I began to wonder what type of pants Amina had on, I fancied they were big pants, flesh coloured – beige. I must have been absent for a few moments as I heard Sherif coughing in a false way and I realised that I had better 'get on it'. I brought my flashdrive out of my pocket, the magic wand holding a 'professional' assessment tool that I had had the foresight to download for free the night before. OK.. we had 75 minutes to get through; I made a quick mental breakdown of the lesson; introductions x 2 could take up 15 minutes, some nauseating 'warm up' games could lose another 15, then asking for a coffee and arranging a laptop for the flashdrive upload would nicely take up 10 and then the assessment itself. Perfect.
Or so I thought.
Everything started to shatter right after the introductions.. Sherif Ahmed informed me that he had held a senior position in the police force for 15 years and then with those sixth sense eyes set upon me he said he needed this Business English course for his new job; as chief fraud investigator with Bank of America; a name I had hoped I was never going to hear again. I don't think I need to elaborate here; I didn't kill anyone, no-one got hurt in the making of my escape and no, it wasn't a heist. Simply I had taken a lot of money on credit cards, overdrafts and the like and I had skipped town. Of course I had googled the situation thoroughly before doing so and all roads seemed to lead to the one fact that what I had done, although not seen as 'socially correct behaviour for a world citizen' was nevertheless not a crime. However, sitting opposite a person with questionable ethics (ie a person who feels that they ought to uphold bank policies) such as Sherif Ahmed made me feel anxious and I began to feel a headache pressing upon my temples. 'OK,' I thought, 'I'll make a hash of this lesson and they won't ask me back.' But then I began to fret about the payment; what if Sherif insisted on a receipt? What if he asked me awkward questions such as my legal status in Egypt? What if he wanted to see a work visa? I made a conscious shift to let go of these gripping fears for the moment and 'just get through'. I glanced at my mobile. Time was up. The lesson was over.
The next day I got up later than usual and with a hunger in my belly went out for kushari. I was feeling fairly relaxed, King of the World with the 3000 LE that had been passed the day before into my wanting hand, no questions asked. I'd just finished my post food coffee when an sms came through; it was Sherif and he wanted to meet; he said he needed some guidance about a report. I paid my tab and hit the street to get a taxi over there; quite relieved in fact that the 2nd pre-paid lesson was happening so soon; at this rate it would all just be a memory quicker than I had expected. However, life is a bittersweet affair and Sherif Ahmed was about to grab my balls and twist them into oblivion; or at least try to. I arrived at the family house and was shown into a small study room this time, wondering why the hell we had had to go through the overage teenage décor hell of the sister's bedroom the day before. The table had numerous files and folders upon it and several silver pens lined up in a holder. Sherif gestured for me to sit down and then he also took a seat. He looked at me for a disconcerting 'over minute' and then coughed as he opened a folder. 'I did some homework,' he said. I knew he didn't mean anything to do with the subject/verb agreements work I'd left him and his sister with. I knew things were about to get tricky. In some ways, in that moment right before it all happened, I felt a certain relief to receive such assurance that my paranoias were rightly placed – that I had been tuned in to the big fuck up. In some ways the whole stinking pile of crap made me feel insanely alive. I took a deep breath, inhaled the moment and listened with ever increasing coldness as he went on, “It turns out that quite a few people are keen to know your whereabouts. There's money on your head”. He paused and fixed me with those corporate eyes and gave an odd, imitation of a smile. I didn't say anything, in fact I let my face remain passive throughout. I was on my toes inside but I wasn't gonna let this guy see that. He lit a cigarette, fastening himself further into what was fast becoming a trite pastiche, and sat back in his chair; 'a dominant move by the assuming alpha male' I thought. “I can help you,” he said. There was a definitive pause. It was match serve or swerve; I made my aim, “How?”.
I guess looking at me now, you might wonder indeed at Sherif Ahmed's understanding of the verb 'to help'. I would say he had a paradoxical or one could say 'dark' take on it. Or maybe it was in the object pronoun; he meant to say “I can help myself”. Whatever, as you can see I am quite literally a broken man now. One thing that gives me some sorry comfort is knowing again that the bad things that are said about the world are said for solid reasons – Sherif Ahmed's law enforcement had an invisible join with criminality; the circle completed itself; he was one and the same and fell into the Big Blur. In other words he was a corrupted asshole.
“50,000 LE”
“What?”
“And your cover is safe”
“Cover? I'm not an assassin! I, I...”
“I know what you are, and I can keep that knowledge to myself, if you want..”
“Are you....”
“Yes. I'm offering to help you”
The thing was I didn't have 50,000. I didn't have more than the 3000 and actually that was down by about 100. We went through a bit of talk tennis about my family's means, I think it was hard for Sherif to understand such familial dysfunction and to put together a picture of a man that could travel and live independently with that of a penniless person; or at least a person who truly only had 2,900 LE. Or, hmmm, let's be brutal.. he didn't give a stuffed monkey's ass.. he just wanted his money.. end of.
Like they say a conman can only con you if you want to believe in the first place, a blackmail situation is similar; in that there has to be something the blackmailee is concerned about. I don't know why I felt so bothered, I actually don't know anymore, but at the time I was freaked and all I wanted was to be able to stay in Egypt. Sherif said for the 50,000 he'd also throw in some benefits; like a residency visa and stuff.
I've paid him about half of it now, but I really don't think I can continue. My right arm has totally got mashed and I've got pins in my legs. Even if I could get it together to throw myself in front of some more cars they'd see the existing damage and might cotton on. Or the doctors might ask questions. It's getting hard to go to different hospitals all the time and besides; it hurts. I'm hurting. And I think the smashes to my head are like affecting me, I mean like.. oh.. yeh.. I haven't even explained have I? Well, I usually do it in front of the Sheraton, but sometimes The Four Seasons too. The first one I did straight, but nowadays I take some meds first. The drivers usually don't have any insurance and I size them up quick to come up with a figure that I guess they can pay. I'm generally right. They pay. I've done about seven or eight now, but like I said I'm getting tired. I stil don't have any residency papers and I have to pay the hospital bills on my own. Maybe I should go back to America and do this, I mean we are the country of sueing right? I mean if we take this as a career option then basing myself in Egypt sucks. Anyways, they call me The Accident Man, the bawabs and the street people. They know my game, they bring me tea when I'm lying in front of a car. One of them even has a First Aid Kit now.
Yeh, strange life, isn't it.
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The Watcher
I'd been watching
her and her friend for a while.
I first saw them when a guy I
know asked me to advise about a repair job on the roof of their
building. I work as a porter at a hotel but I know about building
because, I don't know why, I was just always good at it naturally it
seemed and I got a reputation in my neighbourhood for being
'handy'.
Anyway these girls, they'd left the shutters of their
back window open and when I came down the stairs out the back, the
ones the trash collectors use, it was some luring energy that came
through.
I went back there before dawn, climbed up those steps
full of litter and bones, found a seat and sat waiting. I felt an
energy that troubled, yet excited me. I knew I shouldn't be there but
at the same time they had their shutters open for a reason, it was an
invitation and I was just waiting for the time to accept.
The
first time I sat there for an hour. I was wearing my uniform for the
porter job, so I brought along a newspaper to sit on. I'd told my mum
that I was going to start trying to go into work early - she accepted
what I said and didn't think it was suspicious; in fact she praised
me.
I didn't like it on those stairs, I'm not fussy, but I
don't think many people like all that type of rubbish around them and
the smells and the cats. Some of those cats are djinns and you have
to work out which ones they are; they're the ones that come up on you
real fast and you don't even see their eyes, bright with feral
hunger.
I sat there but nothing happened, at least nothing
that I saw, but I could feel them; feel their bodies inside their
flat, in their beds, stirring as they sensed me waiting. I knew then
they wanted me. It was just a matter of time and they would create
the perfect moment.
And they did.
The dark haired one
was on the sofa, kissing some guy like in a film. He hadn't come
there much and he never brought anything with him so far as I could
see; he visited empty handed; wanting her to fill his hold. I knew he
would leave, take whatever it was he decided was enough and then go
and then I would be there, the one who could really be depended upon.
The blonde one was going to and fro to the bathroom, wrapped
in a towel, her white moon skin asking to be bitten. She was a moon
fruit, but I had to know when to taste her, sense when she was
ripe.
The man left. And the dark haired one went over to her
computer and started writing something, staring sometimes out of the
other windows, the ones that didn't have me in their view, but
instead the city and its night.
I took my calling, for I knew
they needed me then, to bring some shape to their lives, their lives
that were just too open and bringing in the dead leaves. They needed
my strength, my focus, my lead. I would have to divide them though,
for together they would continue to remember the other way, yes I
would have to ensure that they were kept apart. I would be the one to
teach them.
It was surprisingly easy to get in, the railings
held my weight and then I was over onto the balcony and into the
kitchen. I decided to first go to the blonde, she was taking a
shower, so I would have to wait as bathrooms are full of water
spirits. I went into a bedroom and waited, reciting prayers to give
me clarity. I worried that the other one would come and I checked
around the room to confirm it wasn't in use. But then suddenly a
mobile phone began to ring loudly somewhere in the flat and the
blonde came out of the bathroom and took the call. She was speaking
for a long time out down the hallway, probably in her bedroom and I
finally heard her saying goodbye to the caller, when the dark haired
one came suddenly near to the bathroom. I panicked at this change of
movement and tried to gather some inward strength.
And then,
then I don't know what happened.
I believe one of them was a
witch, the dark one I think, and she had summoned some type of magic.
All I know is that three women, dressed in black garments, were from
nowhere upon me. They had no nails but talons, that scarred my face
until now and their faces were screams or nightmares visited upon
this earth, The worst were their words, or what I understood of them
– pushed into my being with fire and all this as was earth pushed
into my mouth so that I was unable to make one sound to save
myself.
My mother still asks where I got these marks upon my
face. I still say I don't know.
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Bird Girl
I like it like this. This is where I want to be. It's the only place.
On floor level my body isn't helpful, it bangs into things like other people's. It's heavy. It lets me down.
Here, suspended from this bar, I am alive.
He's around somewhere, maybe half awake on the mattress, maybe watching me from a corner – huddled around his bottle. He prefers to stay like that, than go out. He says being outside is pointless. His body let him down too, and will probably never recover, that's why he drinks and watches me – I'm his memory and his flight.
We don't have much; just the necessities; just what we must have. This trapeze is all I insisted on. He built it for me, his ruined hand barely able to work.
I don't want him. I don't want anything. Just this. This muscle pain driving orgasms into my head, pushing them blue into my eyes. This twisting, the sinews of my arms on the precipice of snapping, this shape, my shape, within the upper space; this tense freedom.
He and I, we are some kind of outsiders, not belonging or wanting to belong. We know people look at us suspiciously and we don't try to cultivate good opinion.
He hung my trapeze near the huge front wall windows; I fly into the night, into the neon insanity. These concrete gods cannot demand me to stop – I am in the hand of the mightier one – of the true Divine. I am beheld by cosmic mania, by the jewel of non being. I arch my body and meet with sky. There is nobody. Nobody can find me now. I am a high diver, an astronaut, a nothing. My god, let me stay in this boundless, placeless, traceless climax.
Devoured and devouring, I rise.
I like it like this. This is where I want to be. It's the only place.
On floor level my body isn't helpful, it bangs into things like other people's. It's heavy. It lets me down.
Here, suspended from this bar, I am alive.
He's around somewhere, maybe half awake on the mattress, maybe watching me from a corner – huddled around his bottle. He prefers to stay like that, than go out. He says being outside is pointless. His body let him down too, and will probably never recover, that's why he drinks and watches me – I'm his memory and his flight.
We don't have much; just the necessities; just what we must have. This trapeze is all I insisted on. He built it for me, his ruined hand barely able to work.
I don't want him. I don't want anything. Just this. This muscle pain driving orgasms into my head, pushing them blue into my eyes. This twisting, the sinews of my arms on the precipice of snapping, this shape, my shape, within the upper space; this tense freedom.
He and I, we are some kind of outsiders, not belonging or wanting to belong. We know people look at us suspiciously and we don't try to cultivate good opinion.
He hung my trapeze near the huge front wall windows; I fly into the night, into the neon insanity. These concrete gods cannot demand me to stop – I am in the hand of the mightier one – of the true Divine. I am beheld by cosmic mania, by the jewel of non being. I arch my body and meet with sky. There is nobody. Nobody can find me now. I am a high diver, an astronaut, a nothing. My god, let me stay in this boundless, placeless, traceless climax.
Devoured and devouring, I rise.
-------------
The Shot
The
shot sliced the night, jaggedly blading the air and waking many of
the residents of the street. Even Mahmoud stirred, his eyes still
dreaming upon the scene of his wife dancing in a red Eskanderaya
dress, but instead waking grumpily to the reality of her hulk sitting
next to him – head to toe in a drab brown polyester galabeya.
Down on the street, the bawabs that slept close to the doors of their buildings were consulting each other in loud garbles and shouting at the boys from the kiosks to go and investigate. The security from the hotel strode over, walking assuredly, keeping their distance from the rabble – but wanting to ensure it was one shot only, so they could go back to their game of cards.
The kiosk boys came back down from the top of the street, reporting nothing more than day old kittens mewing near the trash, and went back to their huddle of cigarettes watching a film on a tiny portable TV.
I wasn't found till morning. It was Ramy who came up onto the roof first, to take some respite from the melee of officers below and look at the streets while taking his coffee. At first he didn't see me and was just kicking the dust around with his boots; I know he hated those boots, always wanting to stretch his toes on the ground and remember his naïve childhood and his father's village. Ramy's problem was that his colleagues thought him a dunce who had only managed to get as far as the lower ranks of the police force due to an uncle who had done some land deals with a chief. Nevertheless it pleased them to have him around, as it made them feel cleverer and therefore better about themselves and their own pitiless roles.
Poor Ramy, he actually still had a heart of some kind and now it was sent into his throat as he turned and saw me. I knew I couldn't have been a pretty picture, at least not around my head – or what was left of it. Ramy made an unintelligible noise and took some steps towards me, then a few steps back, then there was a stillness and he began to recite a prayer. His voice took on a silk like tone, it was indeed a beautiful moment and I wished I could have risen up to thank him, but of course even if that had been possible it would have frightened the boy out of his wits.
But then, in the midst of this spiritual plateau, Ahmed and Mohamed came up onto the roof. They began to shout and the panic was evident in their voices at the same time as their attempts to assert their status over Ramy; who was actually, to my horror, taken aside by Ahmed and patted down to see if he had taken anything from me whilst Mohamed then started to shout that Ramy should be arrested until they had ascertained how I had died. I willed the idiots to see the gun that had fallen from my own hand but I began to realise it was not about facts, it was about a chance to finally nail Ramy and get one step up the ladder and hopefully acrue some bribes from his witless family – for whom their son was the only means of any type of pension and if it took selling more of their farm to get money for his reputation to remain intact then that is what they would have to do.
Oh how glad I was to be gone from this absurd life! Yet if only I had not lived it as a coward, a people pleaser, a good man to my dear mother God rest her soul – oh how she cried with joyous pride on seeing me in my police uniform that forsaken day I received my rank. I, who could have been a poet but instead captured those who sought to live outside the borders and boundaries of this ridiculous society. Of course there were thugs and scoundrels that one would not wish to be roaming freely, but there were also poor itinerants who did not deserve such rough handling from the lower rank officers and those higher rank ones with a penchant for a little torture.
Yet all of this distaste could have been suffered for more years and I could have gone on collecting my wage and living my quiet lone life in the old family apartment - it it hadn't been for that sudden and most astonishing day of January 25th 2011.
Oh how it came from nowhere, and yet from everywhere! The whole city it seemed rose up in all their remembered pride and took the streets with a roar! And oh how my heart was at last alive for the first time since being a small child! But then, oh – how could I continue? Seeing such aliveness being crushed by my police fellows. Witnessing the brutality, the butchery of innocents, the pure prayer of liberty defiled. I took leave of absence from that day on – although I did not actually submit my formal request, I simply stopped turning up at the station. Instead I walked the revolutionised streets, like a ghost unseen, with the crowds, the fires, the stampedes, the chanting, the tear gas, the bullets, the fallen, the dead, the living, the life! all around me. Sometimes I would walk for days, other times I would find a small uninterrupted space and sleep for a while, every now and then I would return home but nothing seemed to make sense any longer and I could not find any rest or respite in what had once been my hide away from this world.
The days became months became nearly a year, the crowds had stopped gathering in such verocity and I saw my old colleagues were back in their former positions, as comfortable and as despicably tyrannical as ever.
My decision to leave this world was born from what seemed common sense, I had no great despair nor elation prior to my finale. It was more that I had had enough. Enough of the inequality, the wrongness I saw about me at every turn. Enough of dragging my cumbersome form from bed to breakfast table to sofa with occasional differences inbetween.
I left no note, nor did I say any astounding words to anyone I had known or encountered that last day. I went to the station roof because I didn't want to sully my apartment or shock my maid when she would arrive the next morning. I wore my uniform because without it I would not have been able to pass unobstructed. I chose 4am as many of the bawabs on that street who otherwise would have noted my reappearance after all this time and may have wished to engage in some chat were sleeping, and the colleagues from the station were all inside the building save for two of the lowest ranking young ones outside in their pigeon hole, snoring.
So I climbed the stairs and breathed in the city with all its paradoxes, hopes and fails, its dirt and glory and I had never felt so serene in that moment, so was it a gift from God may He be most praised, I placed the barrel of that gun in my mouth, looked up at the starless sky and...
Down on the street, the bawabs that slept close to the doors of their buildings were consulting each other in loud garbles and shouting at the boys from the kiosks to go and investigate. The security from the hotel strode over, walking assuredly, keeping their distance from the rabble – but wanting to ensure it was one shot only, so they could go back to their game of cards.
The kiosk boys came back down from the top of the street, reporting nothing more than day old kittens mewing near the trash, and went back to their huddle of cigarettes watching a film on a tiny portable TV.
I wasn't found till morning. It was Ramy who came up onto the roof first, to take some respite from the melee of officers below and look at the streets while taking his coffee. At first he didn't see me and was just kicking the dust around with his boots; I know he hated those boots, always wanting to stretch his toes on the ground and remember his naïve childhood and his father's village. Ramy's problem was that his colleagues thought him a dunce who had only managed to get as far as the lower ranks of the police force due to an uncle who had done some land deals with a chief. Nevertheless it pleased them to have him around, as it made them feel cleverer and therefore better about themselves and their own pitiless roles.
Poor Ramy, he actually still had a heart of some kind and now it was sent into his throat as he turned and saw me. I knew I couldn't have been a pretty picture, at least not around my head – or what was left of it. Ramy made an unintelligible noise and took some steps towards me, then a few steps back, then there was a stillness and he began to recite a prayer. His voice took on a silk like tone, it was indeed a beautiful moment and I wished I could have risen up to thank him, but of course even if that had been possible it would have frightened the boy out of his wits.
But then, in the midst of this spiritual plateau, Ahmed and Mohamed came up onto the roof. They began to shout and the panic was evident in their voices at the same time as their attempts to assert their status over Ramy; who was actually, to my horror, taken aside by Ahmed and patted down to see if he had taken anything from me whilst Mohamed then started to shout that Ramy should be arrested until they had ascertained how I had died. I willed the idiots to see the gun that had fallen from my own hand but I began to realise it was not about facts, it was about a chance to finally nail Ramy and get one step up the ladder and hopefully acrue some bribes from his witless family – for whom their son was the only means of any type of pension and if it took selling more of their farm to get money for his reputation to remain intact then that is what they would have to do.
Oh how glad I was to be gone from this absurd life! Yet if only I had not lived it as a coward, a people pleaser, a good man to my dear mother God rest her soul – oh how she cried with joyous pride on seeing me in my police uniform that forsaken day I received my rank. I, who could have been a poet but instead captured those who sought to live outside the borders and boundaries of this ridiculous society. Of course there were thugs and scoundrels that one would not wish to be roaming freely, but there were also poor itinerants who did not deserve such rough handling from the lower rank officers and those higher rank ones with a penchant for a little torture.
Yet all of this distaste could have been suffered for more years and I could have gone on collecting my wage and living my quiet lone life in the old family apartment - it it hadn't been for that sudden and most astonishing day of January 25th 2011.
Oh how it came from nowhere, and yet from everywhere! The whole city it seemed rose up in all their remembered pride and took the streets with a roar! And oh how my heart was at last alive for the first time since being a small child! But then, oh – how could I continue? Seeing such aliveness being crushed by my police fellows. Witnessing the brutality, the butchery of innocents, the pure prayer of liberty defiled. I took leave of absence from that day on – although I did not actually submit my formal request, I simply stopped turning up at the station. Instead I walked the revolutionised streets, like a ghost unseen, with the crowds, the fires, the stampedes, the chanting, the tear gas, the bullets, the fallen, the dead, the living, the life! all around me. Sometimes I would walk for days, other times I would find a small uninterrupted space and sleep for a while, every now and then I would return home but nothing seemed to make sense any longer and I could not find any rest or respite in what had once been my hide away from this world.
The days became months became nearly a year, the crowds had stopped gathering in such verocity and I saw my old colleagues were back in their former positions, as comfortable and as despicably tyrannical as ever.
My decision to leave this world was born from what seemed common sense, I had no great despair nor elation prior to my finale. It was more that I had had enough. Enough of the inequality, the wrongness I saw about me at every turn. Enough of dragging my cumbersome form from bed to breakfast table to sofa with occasional differences inbetween.
I left no note, nor did I say any astounding words to anyone I had known or encountered that last day. I went to the station roof because I didn't want to sully my apartment or shock my maid when she would arrive the next morning. I wore my uniform because without it I would not have been able to pass unobstructed. I chose 4am as many of the bawabs on that street who otherwise would have noted my reappearance after all this time and may have wished to engage in some chat were sleeping, and the colleagues from the station were all inside the building save for two of the lowest ranking young ones outside in their pigeon hole, snoring.
So I climbed the stairs and breathed in the city with all its paradoxes, hopes and fails, its dirt and glory and I had never felt so serene in that moment, so was it a gift from God may He be most praised, I placed the barrel of that gun in my mouth, looked up at the starless sky and...
