Thursday, May 10, 2007

To Kill With Kindness

A short scene
(Curtain. It is a cold winter in an uptown Cairo district. The streets are buzzing with cars and flashes of light. Many people are moving about the famous restaurant. I am warming myself with a good laugh with my friends in a Picanto when a dark shadow that rises beside me startles me. A homeless child with an expression of innocence and extreme misery appears and starts to wipe the side window. I smile warmly at him and start looking for some change)

I: Have you got any change for this sweet kid?
Friend: Sure.
(Child is still wiping. I continue to look sweetly at him)
I: (Giving him a one-pound note) Thank you.
(Child takes the money and looks at me steadily, the same despairing look on his face)
I: (Shivering) Excuse me, honey. I'll close the window because I'm feeling really cold.
(Child smiles with an air of blame around him, then vanishes as I slowly close the window)
Curtain Falls

Wednesday, May 02, 2007

Departure

He said he was leaving...and her heart sank deep in her chest.
She blushed as she thought of grabbing his arm and telling him to stay just a little more so she can tell him...
What did she want to tell him?
Some moments are so overwhelming that any words uttered would be meaningless.
He moved towards the door in heavy steps, then he turned to look at her and only her, and repeated "Goodbye."
She was loking at him, motionless.
What did he want to tell her?
Maybe he wanted to grab her arm and take her away with him.
Or...
Maybe he wanted to read the lingering thoughts on her mind.
And he left...
She couldn't bear to see him suddenly slip away from her...she took a step forward, then back again, then suddenly leapt out of the room, anxious and grieved, saw him stepping down the stairs and fading away. She wanted to call out but her voice died in her throat.
If she had wanted to speak, why was she silent? Why are we always silent when the people we love need us so much!
I dared not tell you to stay...but as I stepped back into the room I knew the words escaping me were...
"every time you go away...you take a piece of me with you."

Tuesday, May 01, 2007

بمناسبة عيد العمال

ده أول عيد عمال يعدى عليا و أنا "امرأة عاملة"
و لو سألتونى النهارده بيفكرك بإيه؟
حاقوللكوا بيفكرنى إن أنا بقالى شهرين و نص باشتغل و لسة ماقبضتش
بشتغل لله و للوطن... على بال ما سيادة رئيس الجامعة يحن علينا و يبعت لنا القرار اللى فيه مرتبنا, هو يتأخر براحته و الموظفين يتمطعوا و يناموا و يقوموا براحتهم و مش مهم الناس المحترمة المسئولين عن تعليم المئات من شباب هذا البلد, يروحوا بقى ياخدوا المصروف من أهاليهم زى التلامذة ولا يشحتوا مش مهم. أنا عرفت ان المرتبات نزلت من الفراشين! لقيت عم أحمد ماسك بيقلب فى الفلوس و يتحسر على المرتب اللى بيجيله أنيميا شهر بعد شهر
أنا: هى المرتبات جات يا عم أحمد؟
عم أحمد: أيوة
نزلت على الخزنة, قلت يمكن نزلّنا مرتبات و الموظفين نايمين على ودانهم, الراجل اللى فى الخزنة: احتمال الشهر اللى جاى (نظرة عينيا: نعم يادلعدىىىى) شوفى يمكن نزل لكوا شيكات. نشوف الشيكات, مفيش شيكات. طب لما هما ناويين يذلونا على بال ما يقبضونا, نزلوا لنا جدول ليييه الترم ده؟ اه صحيح, كده مش حيبقى ذلونا ولا حاجة
شهرين و نص باحاول أفهم 400 بنى آدم الفرق بين الصفة و الاسم و فشلت
مش عشان انا مش باعرف اشرح
عشان هما 400
و الصلاة على النبى أحسن

In Dreams

Warning: Explicit content, will be shocking to some of you, so don't blame me for any nightmares :P
We've been taught at university that dreams are either a desire achieved or a sort of reflection of your subconscious - or was it unconscious? - with all that you're scared of, all that you're anticipating, and so on. Anyway, I still had loads of dreams which are real hard to classify under any such category. Sometimes my dreams get so shockingly violent, morbid and explicit that I can't help thinking that they surely they were baked by Mephestopheles in his hell-fire underworld,and not my deepest desires achieved! You keep trying to push undesirable memories to the back of your mind, but they just have to find a release, an explanation, some time to be thought of, to be remembered. They just don't go away. Never! Pushy and irritating as they are, they don't simply appear there infront of your eyes, where you can even smell and touch them, but they also come in the meanest form possible! As gory and DEMONIC as they possible can!
I usually have nightmares...yeah usually! Most nightmares are about dead people. Especially if I had just seen one of the many, many bodies and human debris in the news or in newspapers and magazines, or even silly horror movies. Once I'd be buried alive with the dead, with their bloody, fleshless hands sticking out of the death bags (the very same picture had been published in our local newspapers of the victims of the 2005 Indian ocean Tsunami). Another time there'd be a corpse actually moving and trying to stand on its feet even though it's already torn in half! So sick!
Sexual dreams are another story. I've never really had any 'unusual' sexual dreams. They're plain loaded with kisses, sexual intercourse and all that....until today. Now, I've really been hesitant whether to publish this nightmare I had today or not....but I thought, well, maybe someone outhere can have an explanation! May be when I relate the details I can form a picture of the dream and be able to understand it. But I'm so afraid the dream may be the hidden truth which I do not know or know and don't want to believe.
I dreamt I had two people in custody: a boy and a woman. The funny thing is, the woman was a famous actress but I can't remember whether she was Charlize Theron or Gwyneth Paltrow! I kidnapped both and was attacking them-sexually of course! It was really nuts. I visibly remember laying the woman naked on a table, kissing her passionately and licking her nipples. That RAPE didn't seem to end! And it was so real. The woman wasn't exactly screaming, I think she was torn between her excitement and her distress. I had the boy tied down in the same way, and he didn't scream or try to fight back either. What I can remember really well is how I was thinking when I was attacking them, here's my 'stream of consciousness', if you may," This had to be the end. I once read some statistics stating that people who were molested as children are more likely to be abusers ( that is, sexually abuse others). This is my natural end, and the expected cycle. I was sexually abused as a child, here I am venting out my anger and frustration on other innocent ones..." PSYCHOTIC!!!!!!
More shocking details, I was just about to perform fellatio on the young boy when the police cracked down on me...and I woke up, much to my terror- and relief that this ordeal is over!
Could it be that deep inside in the 'dark recesses of my mind' I'm a rapist and a sadist as well! I'm not a violent or quick-tempered person,maybe this is the very simple reason why I have violent dreams? I do know that there are many feelings within me that need to explode...and I know they usually explode in dreams...but RAPING? CHILDREN? There's gotta be "someone in my head, but it's not me!" Seriously, how come your dreams can be so far from your real life...and a very, very exaggerated form of your wildest and deepest desires. And a strange mix between reality - I was abused as a child, and the statistics are real - and fantasy- women! and children!
Somebody please tell me you had such alarming dreams before!