Cloudy with a Chance of Politics

I woke up.

Let me explain why that's weird.

I am not exactly what you'd call a lucky person. I was born during the Egyptian revolution of 1919 against the British crown. And when I say during, I of course mean while it was happening, but I also mean where it was happening.

The Egyptian Revolution of 1919 is widely accredited for being the first revolution in Egyptian history with active female participation, and it just so happened that my 8-month pregnant mother, God bless her soul - in all her infinite wisdom- decided to participate. Apparently, giving birth to a cumulative litter of 12 children over a very long and productive life of almost 30 years makes a woman... battle-hardened, for lack of a better word.

 At any rate, my mother was marching all over the place, as only a pregnant woman can, lashing out at people with her ample uterus and presumably my head within (which would account for many of my decisions in later life). Her entourage of similarly battle-hardened friends/midwives helped -more like pushed, shoved, pulled and towed- her forward, clearing a wide circle of emptiness around her, much like a penicillin pill would do in a petri dish of E. Coli bacteria; give a person too many tastes of your elbow/knee/my head within a huge uterus, and they would eventually learn to steer clear of the raging pregnant lady and her bodyguards. As if people really need to be warned against that.

It was in that charmingly soothing atmosphere that my mother had her contraction. Just one. One could just as easily cough up a gob of phlegm as it was for her to give birth to me. While standing up. One of the midwives tried to catch me before I hit the ground, but had no such luck. Presumably holding true to the five second rule, she picked me up anyway and wiped me on her galabeyya (traditional Egyptian clothes). There was also the small matter of the umbilical cord, which the midwife was kind enough to bite off. My mother then reportedly pushed ahead through the demonstration to get a larger share of the gunfire, and was rewarded by about 7 poor bullets which probably ricocheted off her balls of steel because she survived and lived to the ripe old age of 90.

What happened to me, you ask? One of the midwives stuck me in her bosom for safe-keeping.

Flash forward 23 years, and the year is 1942. Where am I? You guessed it!

In Alamein, recruited by the British Army to fight in the North Africa campaign, against Rommel, the Desert Fox.

The story of how I got recruited is quite amusing; was I drunk when I applied? No. Was it to pay off a debt? No. Was it to support my wife and 59 children? Also no. My illiterate mother, God bless her soul, got hoodwinked by a desperate British recruitment officer into signing me up, thinking it's a Welfare form; my mother basically fell victim to the world's first Nigerian Prince scam. Well, actually I'm the one who fell victim for it, but that's neither here nor there.

So the 13th of July, 1942 found me in a ditch in Alamein, preparing for a German Panzer offensive. In case you're historically illiterate, the Germans' ace in the hole in World War II were their tanks, and they employed them in Blitzkreig tactics to overwhelmingly efficient results. Efficient for the Germans. Bad for us.

Suddenly, a hand grenade took care of my entire squad, except me because I was conveniently curled in the fetal position behind a concrete wall and singing lullabies to soothe myself. One would think that makes me lucky. One would be wrong because I was then captured by the Germans as I tried to explain that I was only there because my illiterate mother signed me up and I'm really quite a nice guy once you get to know me and would you please stop pulling me so hard.

Not being a stranger to all the stories of what Germans do to their non-Aryan prisoners, I decided to die heroically with a gun in my hand and I snatched one from the soldier who was dragging me along. Just as I prepared to cap a mother fucker, I realized that he was smiling and jabbering away in incomprehensible German. I pulled the trigger, and the pathetic metallic click that followed was almost as comic as the sound a balloon makes as it lets the air out when it's untied.

Just as they were preparing to put me down like a particularly amusing rabid dog who's been chasing his tail for 3 days, I got caught in the middle of a surprise British counter attack and was instead captured by the British, who thought I'd turned traitor because I had a gun and yet failed to cap a mother fucker. So I was then captured by my own army and put to questioning. The only thing that saved my unlucky ass was that they realized the gun was empty before they started the questioning, and that I must have either fired it or run out of ammo. I was dishonorably discharged not long after -which was a way of cheating me of my pay, I suppose- when the North African campaign was over and they rightfully realized that I was useless.

Who should happen to hire me now as a palace guard? Why, King Farouk, of course!

Perhaps thinking that a WWII veteran battalion of palace guards would be more intimidating than 3am 3abdo (the palace doorman), the king then hired all the Egyptian survivors of the Battle of Alamein and posted them in strategic locations around his palaces. I was posted on the doors of Kasr 3abdeen on the 23rd of July 1956. Perhaps that date rings a bell. Perhaps it rings a dozen bells. Perhaps it drives a battalion of tanks towards Kasr 3abdeen, because that's exactly what happened next. You might be surprised to know that staring down the barrel of a hostile tank is not as spiritually fulfilling as we've been led to believe.

The king, being a truly patriotic man (no sarcasm here), surrendered the palace and refused help from the British, famously saying that he would much rather not be king of Egypt than let a single drop of Egyptian blood be spilled. Which was noble and heroic for him, but not so much for me because the next thing I knew was being hit on the head with the butt of a soldier's rifle who seemed to have been sore at his being cheated of his daily quota of Egyptian blood and decided to take it out on me.

Imagine my surprise, then, when I woke up and I wasn't in the palace, or in a prison, or in 1956.

You see, I seem to recall that electricity was invented in 1956.
But I woke up in a dark, candle-lit room with no other source of light whatsoever.
Wow, I must be in the middle ages.

There was an old man sitting by my hospital bed. He didn't seem to know me; he was just there because he was napping and the hospital had no other places for him to sit. I shrugged. Egyptian hospitals will always be the same.

After a few minutes of hoarse yelling, the old man stirred at the cacophony I was making. After a few more minutes of hoarse yelling, he still had no idea what I was saying. I pointed at a calendar on the wall and shrugged, meaning "what day is it?". He said "Wednesday". I pointed at it again. He said Wednesday again.

This went on for a while.

Eventually, he understood me, and to my eternal surprise he said "Wednesday, the 20th of August, 2014". I found a notepad on my nightstand, and I scribbled "how come we don't have electricity anymore?". Thankfully he was literate, and he replied "May God protect our Sissi". I asked why the hospital was so busy. he said "May God protect our Sissi". I asked who Sissi was, he replied "SHHHHHHHH, Do you want to get us both killed?". He then whispered (yelled at the top of his lungs, but he didn't know that) that he's our president. I asked him if we were free of the British, and he said "May God protect our Sissi, he protected us from the Muslim Brotherhood". The man was brainwashed cleaner than a microwaved hard disk. I asked if the hungry were fed and if the unemployment rates were down. He gave the same reply and added that he was hungry and unemployed but as long as Sissi is his lord and savior he shalt be fine. Since Sissi seemed to be such an impressive leader, I asked him the only question to come to a pan-Arab's brain from 1956;
I asked him if Palestine was liberated yet, and the old man laughed so hard he died in his chair. Literally.
I then yelled for help, and the man's family thought I'd killed him and they stabbed me. But I died happily.

You wanna know why? For one thing, it's because it was probably a nightmare and that I would probably wake up again in prosperous, classy and wealthy 1950s Egypt... but also because even the unluckiest wretch who lived in presumably the darkest era of Egyptian history couldn't stand to see 2014, Sissi's Egypt.

May God protect him, of course.

The "Arab" World

It happens every four years, like clock work.

Israel starts some massive operation in Gaza and the world collectively turns its back and studies the ceiling intently while whistling a merry tune.

You wanna hear a joke? Arabs.

Being "Arab" is currently nothing more than an ethnicity. Once, the word Arab entailed a unity; a sense of camaraderie and empathy. We were never exactly a cohesive unit, but we came through for each other. In 1967 and 1973, when the going got tough, we stuck together. When it came to war, Egypt and Syria were financially supported by Saudi Arabia and the Arab world enforced the famous oil embargo. Countries as far away from Israel as Libya, Algeria and even Morocco sent what help they could. Gaza was basically part of Egypt, and any aggression there was unthinkable.

Once.

What do we have to show for it today? A fascist government in Egypt which closed the border crossings to Gaza; the only relief Gaza is ever going to get? A Saudi monarchy so engrossed in its financial gains that it doesn't even consider using its considerable political weight to oppose the Israeli genocide in Gaza? A war-torn Syria which is every bit as devastated as Gaza? I would mention Iraq if it bore any semblance to a country, and not a US oil faucet.

Keep your oil money, Saudi Arabia, and your non-existent, begrudged aid, Egypt. But their blood is on your hands.

Let's all "condemn" the actions on social media and share the pictures on Facebook, idiotically thinking that it makes any sort of difference. Guess what? That blood-boiling Facebook status you spent an hour writing? It's not gonna feed a displaced, starving family in Gaza or Syria. That picture you shared? It's not gonna shoot down that Israeli jet which is raining fire and death upon women and children and unarmed men... and neither will this blog post. Let's all bask in the glow of our ignorance and indifference, conveniently choosing to ignore that our governments are soul-less, heartless parasites leeching off our hard work and using our money to line their pockets and shrugging off their pleas for help. And let's not forget the US government; the champions of democracy and human rights. Let's spend $5 billion a year to buy top notch military equipment for Israel to bomb women and children and Egypt to crush protesters and gun down political activists.

When the Egyptian media phrases it like "Israel is targeting "terrorists"  in Gaza", you know that the cause is well and truly lost. When the brainwashed masses lack even the slightest degree of passive empathy for Palestinians and claim that "Hamas the terrorist organization" had it coming, you back away slowly and completely disassociate yourself from this joke of a country and look for some other part of the world where you can live without having blood on your hands from just being a part of this charade.

When Egypt, once the shield of the Arab world, becomes an accessory to the Israeli crimes in Gaza by cutting off humanitarian aid and relief, you lose the last dregs of nationalism and loyalty you had left over from the 2011 revolution when you actually let yourself believe that things were ever going to change. I'm done, well and truly done. I wash my hands of Egypt and the Arab world under the current conditions.

May God have mercy on Gaza... that's the only mercy they're ever going to get.

Leadfoot Syndrome

As he did so often when he faced trouble or uncertainty in his life, he took it out on his gas pedal again. His friends called him "Leadfoot", because... well, it's self-explanatory, really.
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His best friend had woken him up earlier that day with promises that he was throwing the party of the year at his place, the epic chance to "score drunk chicks" as he eloquently put it. Try as he might to convince him that he just wasn't interested, in the matter of hours his friend went from persistent to insistent to FUCK-YOU-YOU'RE-COMING-OVER-THIS-INSTANT ("Rhyming is fun", He thought). His friend's philosophy was to hook up with random girls whenever in a dark place in one's life. Or in a good place. Or any place, really... but mostly the dark place thing. Pretty? Score. Drunk? Why not. Fat? Meh, OK. Mustache? Turn off the lights. Didn't matter where, didn't matter when, and most importantly, didn't matter who. Which is all well and good when you're the emotionally crippled bag of commitment issues that his friend was (he thought, with love), but he found that he didn't happen to share that particular philosophy. He took a moment to revel in the utter orgy of madness that was his friend's life, but for some reason the images came up hazy, almost as if his brain was censoring the thoughts on purpose because they would be written in blog form later and it didn't want them to be too explicit. Crazy, right?

He had tried to communicate to his friend that he loved someone and that random hook-ups wouldn't cut it for him anymore, but he would have none of it. Trying to convince him was like trying to logic a dog out of chasing its tail own tail... except his friend usually chased tail in general, not specifically his own. He mentally laughed at his own joke, and then acknowledged the fact that shit like that would probably get him killed one day with a hammer. He was OK with it.

Faced with the immovable wall of sheer nagging that was his friend, he got in his car and drove over. First sign of trouble was that there wasn't a single parking spot left when he got there, and it was only 9 PM. Using his carefully-honed detective skills, he concluded from the fresh tire-tracks that most of the cars were there for the party and that they'd only just arrived. He was halfway up the stairs, with a smug smile on his face, when he heard his friend screaming "wrong building, you idiot" from -you guessed it- another building, presumably the right one.

Up he went, and was greeted at the door by his friend and a girl, doubtless his first hook-up of the night. He was quickly reminded why he hated parties, as he walked inside.

First of all, the music. It wasn't like he was 50 or anything, but why did it have to be so LOUD? Then he answered himself; because it eliminated the need for small talk. People were simply there to drink, dance and have a good time without feeling the need to engage in irrelevant, unnecessary niceties such as saying "hi" or asking about each other's hobbies, or I don't know, getting to know each others' names. "What is this, the 40s?", the whole atmosphere seemed to ask itself derisively in response, snorting and choking on its beer while grinding with a girl whose face it hadn't even seen yet.

Mostly communicating by improvised sign language, his friend ushered him to a couch where two very hot girls started flirting with him... and by flirting, I mean the naughty kind that makes babies. He politely said thanks but no thanks, which they responded to by smiling and nodding their heads vigorously and doing what they'd been doing anyway. He realized that they probably hadn't heard him because he hadn't even heard himself, so he pointed at his crotch, shook his head and got up. He could see how heart-broken they were, until they started making out two seconds later. Oh, well. It felt nice that they'd obviously been into him, but in all fairness he was only 70% sure that his friend hadn't paid them to.

As the night progressed, he realized that the unavailable vibe he was giving off was an unbelievable chick-magnet. Five more girls had tried to (is "jump his bones" an appropriate term?) and two even gave him their phone numbers so he could call them later. Irresistible Adonis though he narcissistically knew he was, rejecting ten girls in one night had already inflated his ego enough... In some weird way, his friend had helped. But he was no closer to getting over the girl he loved, and he wasn't in the mood to reject ten more girls. Well, maybe just two more. OK, now he had to go. He looked for his friend, who was nowhere to be found, so he decided to call it a night anyway and left early.

By early, I meant 2 am. Time had passed faster than he believed possible.

Even though he hadn't drunk at all, it was very hard to stay awake at that hour without cranking up the music in his car. Comfortably Numb often calmed him down, but that was the opposite of what he wanted... so, he put on Will Pharrel's "Happy". Yeah, he thought it was way overrated and mainstream too, but it made him want to dance, so sue him. Anyway, the minute he started driving, his thoughts turned to her again. As if in response, he slammed his foot on the gas pedal.

As he did so often when he faced trouble or uncertainty in his life, he took it out on his gas pedal again. His friends called him "Leadfoot", because... well, it's self-explanatory, really. He didn't understand why high speed made him feel better. Maybe he liked almost dying several times a day... or maybe in some weird way, speed made him outrun his doubts and feelings. And what feelings they were...
He had unresolved issues with his ex; he was having almost daily fights with his father; his boss had given him ANOTHER RAISE (comic relief interjection) and most importantly, he was hopelessly in love with a girl who probably felt the same way but was completely wrong for him and he didn't know how to deal with it.

As if that weren't enough, he crashed into a lamp post.

 He staggered out of the car, battered and bloody, only to be hit by another car. He would have laughed at the comic death he was facing, but it hurt too much to breathe so he settled for a smile... because his last thought was of her... And because "Happy" was still playing in his car, comically mocking his last dying breath.

I know, huge bummer...

So anyway, what's up with you?

Maryam

I can't believe I'm writing this, but this is long overdue. I don't know where you are, what you're doing or who you're with. I'm not even sure you're alive... but for the sake of my own sanity, I think it's time I had this conversation with you, even if it's only in my head (and on my blog) and you will probably never read it.

You were my exact definition of beautiful; blue-green eyes depending on the lighting, a thick mane of soft brown hair that cascaded elegantly down your back (with that stupid ash-blonde streak you had as a memento from when you were trying to go blonde); a neck so long and perfect it might as well have been sculpted from porcelain; lustrous red, full-sized lips and a smile that could get a man to chew off his right hand just to see it; and soft round cheeks that made you look deceptively innocent.

I was young and stupid, and like a fly that keeps bumping into a lit lamp because of the pretty light, eventually I got burned. There were huge red flags everywhere, and I think you yourself tried to warn me, but I was blind to the signs. We were never meant to be together and you were too wild for an inexperienced teenage boy to manage. Even though I knew we were incompatible and that it wouldn't last, the time we were together was the most I've felt alive in 22 years now. I always knew on some level that we'd never make it, but it still hurt me all the same when you did what you did.

You knew how proud I am. Why would you hurt me the way you did? You gave me commitment issues; trust issues; intimacy issues; control issues... you name it. You messed me up for life. You were the only girl I ever loved, and I don't think I will ever get over what you did. I haven't been able to love again, as hard as I tried, and that's your fault. Yet for some reason, instead of accepting this and moving on, my mind keeps going around in circles, like a sadistic game of Pac-man where I keep distracting myself with pac-dots to get away from the ghost(s) of your memory.

I know you tried to reach me a lot, but I haven't been able to forgive you and I probably never will. I didn't want to give you a chance to explain whatever motives you had because I was still hopelessly in love with you and I'd have probably forgiven you... again. I still can't believe I forgave you that one time... it's a testament to how much I loved you, but you took that love and wiped the floor with it before flushing it down the toilet.

I cut you out of my life because I wanted to hurt you like you hurt me. I wanted to deny you closure, but you know what's ironic? I denied it to me, too. After all these years, I can still picture your face at will, as clearly as if I just saw you yesterday... and it's been five years. The fact that you still pop up in my dreams after all this time is surprising, but the fact that I wake up smiling is simply unsettling. I don't know what to do anymore... I've made an art out of being trapped in the maze that is my past, and I'm running out of pac-dots.

I'm really not sure what I want to say, except that I hate that I still remember you. I hate that somewhere, deep down, there are  couple of Bondok molecules who are still in love with you and unable to let you go. I hate that in the act of never forgiving you, I've doomed myself to forever having that picture of your face engraved in my brain, beautiful and terrible and out of reach.

I don't want you back. I'll never want you back.
I hate you.
But I miss who I was with you.
and... I miss you.



  

The Impossible Dream

The war was not going so well. I laughed. Understatement of the century.

The Syrian offensive was repelled the day before, and the Israeli Air Force had just seized control of the Jordanian border crossing. Even though the Saudi Arabian artillery were punching holes in the Israeli armor in the South, the Israeli counter attack through southern Lebanon was as unexpected as it was catastrophic. I couldn't help admiring the Israelis... even faced with such overwhelming odds, they were still putting up an impressive fight. Their ace in the hole was their Air Force, but the combined force of the Iraqi, Egyptian and Saudi Arabian Air Forces prevented Israeli air superiority. Which didn't stop them making massive gains during the first four days of the war. However, Israeli economy can't sustain a prolonged armed conflict, and this is where we had the advantage if we could draw out the war.

But it was hard to see the advantage from where I was standing.

Sinai shares Israel's longest land border, which is why we took the brunt of their force. Which was just as well, seeing as there was an element of poetical irony that we were back here fighting our age-old enemy in the same bunkers we fought them from not that long ago. Not that my squad gives a hoot about poetical irony, as they drop like flies, one by one, bleeding out around me while I persist, fueled with rage and a thirst for revenge.

Prospects of survival were bleak.

The Libyan regiment which was our back-up was reassigned at the last minute to guard the supply lines. There was no way any special forces would be spared to help us, seeing as most of them were assigned to sabotage targets behind enemy lines... mostly nuclear missile launch facilities. The Air Force was no good either... they had bigger worries than a tank escort unit which lost their tank and had to take cover in an old warehouse. Most of my squad was down, and I'd already accepted the fact that I wasn't getting out of this one.

I looked at my remaining squad members as we ducked behind some old crates, and I nodded. There was a look of mutual understanding. We would come out guns blazing. I held up three fingers... then two- one.
"ALLAHU AKBAR" someone screamed.
I looked around me... it wasn't my squad. Confused, I gestured at them to emerge from cover anyway. We would have revenge. We would kill...
Bedouins?
I couldn't believe my eyes. "I must be delirious from lack of food and sleep", I thought. But sure enough, just as I emptied my first clip and ducked into cover to reload, one of them screamed "Allahu Akbar!" again. Israelis make it a point not to do that. What the hell is going on?

There was a sudden explosion nearby, and I was knocked into the concrete barrier I was taking cover behind. Even though my head was bleeding freely, the knock snapped me out of it. I understood... I'd been delirious alright.

Battlefield trauma has this fun little effect sometimes where it can make you delirious. Suddenly I became aware that there was no Syrian offensive. There was no Iraqi-Egyptian Air force. There was neither Saudi Arabian Artillery nor Libyan regiments. And we weren't fighting Israelis... In fact, at that point I was ironically kind of fighting for Israeli national security as I gunned down Bedouins in Sinai near the Israeli border. Moreover, I was completely on my own after the Bedouin attack on the backwater security checkpoint I was assigned to completely wiped out my unit... I'd been giving silent commands to ghosts for God knows how long.

I couldn't bear the thought that I was dying there alone to indirectly protect my real enemy, so my brain made up this elaborate, alternate reality to convince me that my death meant something. I spat, reloaded, and emerged from cover.

As I stood there, bitterly channeling my rage through the painfully inferior AK-47 that was all my government could afford me, I braced myself for a lonely, forgotten death in a far away outpost no one would ever remember. I  furiously blinked tears of rage from my eyes... A rage that I was no longer able to contain.

Impossible dreams are just that... they're impossible. And Arab unity is an impossible dream.

***

Growing up in the Middle East is not easy. We are nothing short of indestructible testaments to sheer human will to survive...

We receive no healthcare.
We eat carcinogenic, expired foods.
We live in slums (well, 90% of us do).
We receive little or no education.
We get hunted down by our own police forces like rabid dogs.
We also get hunted down by our own militaries like rabid dogs.
Daily bombings are a common nuisance.
Highway men are an accepted reality.
And to top it all, when we come of age, we (at least the males) ironically get drafted into the military to help the police kill our own brothers and sisters (sometimes literally) for political reasons the military is supposed to transcend.

And yet we survive to fight another day. I would say "live" another day, if there was any actual living involved. We just fight. Our lives are like chains of small fights in a sadistic video game, leading up to the boss fight at the end -namely cancer or liver failure from the genetically modified crap we eat- which we end up losing because of the non-existent healthcare plans. Suicide bombings are an alien concept to the west because they have decent lives and a lot to lose... But here, suffice to say that more than a few people would choose to blow themselves up if the payoff is a small plot of land in a rural village where they hope their families would live in relative comfort.

Forgive me the history lesson, but with that background in mind, it's easy to see how Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser was so popular in the 1960s. Though I highly disagree with his methods, his reign marked the closest we got to having a unified Arab State and any sort of national pride. Pan-Arabism had always been a dream following the decolonization of the Arab world after World War II, but it wasn't until he was made president of Egypt that we saw the brief union between Egypt and Syria to form the United Arab Republic. Though he committed most of the Egyptian Air Force to an inconsequential civil war in Yemen which caused us to suffer a humiliating defeat in the Six-Day War with Israel; and he destroyed the Egyptian economy through a series of decisions we are still paying for until this day, he was a patriot and a born leader whose people would follow him to hell and back.

I mentally sigh when I remember the story of one of the wars Abdel Nasser stupidly got us into. In 1956, as retaliation against Britain withdrawing their offer to help build the Aswan Dam, he illegally nationalized the Suez Canal -before its contract's maturity date- while the masses cheered, not knowing that this would bring about a tripartite invasion of Egypt... Whereupon in a touching and unforgettable act of solidarity, when the Egyptian "Voice of the Arabs" radio station -which broadcast daily to several Arab countries- fell silent following an air raid, the Damascus Radio famously broadcast "From Damascus, this is Cairo"... It makes me irrationally angry that now when we read in the newspapers about the thousands and thousands of Syrians living in a wasteland that was all but part of Egypt one day, we shrug and flip to the sports section... Not for cynicism or lack of empathy, but rather because we can do absolutely nothing about it. It's very obvious that brute force is not going to solve the issue, and its not like sending the Egyptian Army there would do any good... In fact, judging by Egypt's abysmal state of affairs, it would make matters a lot worse. Besides, at this point -as much as it pains me to say it- it actually makes more sense to support Assad as he is the only hope for a unified Syria. Egyptians have seen what a power vacuum can do to a country, and its not that much better than a civil war.

But I'm getting side-tracked.

Unlike most Egyptian young adult males, I was not drafted into the Egyptian military because conscription is only obligatory if you have a brother... for some reason. However, I've heard the stories, and I'll tell you now that they can blab all they want about it being the most advanced fighting force in Africa (which is not saying much) and the biggest army in Africa (also not saying much) and the shield that guards the realms of men (Game of Thrones reference) with huge phallic-shaped swords that reflect pleasantly on the size of our collective manhood (overcompensation joke), it is still a running joke in Egypt how we use our "top-notch" F-16s (which are getting completely retired from the US Air Force by 2025, by the way) to draw hearts in the sky on the Armed Forces Day as crazed fanatics on the ground wave their posters of our "beloved" Field Marshal. But it's OK, we're putting the M1A1 Abrams tanks to good use as they reign supreme against... unarmed protesters. Well, that's not fair... They're also used to protect the military-owned factories which were originally built to produce ammunition and weapons but which now produce consumer goods and electronics. Because who needs assault rifles, right? Let's just use the ones we already have and sell washing machines instead to pad the top military brass's pockets.

It truly paints a beautiful picture of our guardians, doesn't it?

We grow up here knowing that Zionists are the enemy. Which don't get me wrong, they are... but are they the most pressing concern? Did Zionists shoot up the Cairo University campus, killing tens of students under the pretext that they are "terrorists"? The army's propaganda machine must be a force to be reckoned with, if anyone's actually buying this. Don't get me wrong, I believe that military rule is necessary in Egypt, for the same reason why I think Assad is a necessary evil for Syria. Historically, we've always been ruled by the military and it's the only thing we understand. But I am never going to come to terms with our blatant disregard for human lives for political reasons.

The Egyptian Army once gave Israel pause, because it wasn't just the Egyptian Army... It was an Arab army. Israeli incursions into the Gaza strip were unheard-of. Gaza was wholeheartedly supported by the Egyptian population, and it was reflected in our media. To hear it now, you'd think the Palestinian people are the enemy and that they should be gunned down on sight. What was once the only thing that kept the IDF in check is now running the IDF's errands in Sinai like faithful lapdogs, dispatching "terrorists" by bombing their houses in acts of savagery vaguely reminiscent of the IDF's own practices.

I don't really know where I'm going with this, except that I'm sick and tired of the hypocrisy. I'm sick and tired of being expendable. I'm sick and tired of being treated like a piece of gum stuck on someone's shoe... in my own country, no less. I dream of the day that Arabs unite. I dream of the day we stop needing visas to go to other Arab countries. I dream of the day we have one currency. I dream of the day Saudi Arabia finances Somalian and Yemeni healthcare and development projects. I dream of the day Kuwaiti funds pay for housing displaced Syrians. I dream of the day Oman funds the construction of nuclear/solar power plants to make the Arab world less dependent on fossil fuels; and finally, No one wants war... But if you want peace, you must prepare for war, and I dream of the day Egyptians, Syrians, Libyans, Iraqis, ARABS, mass on the Israeli borders to hold joint military excercises, finally posing a credible enough threat for the Israeli high command to rethink their policies against unarmed Palestinian children whose only fault was being born in the wrong place at the wrong time.

In short, I have an impossible dream.

Addio, Occhi Bellissimi

I'm gonna make this really simple for you guys; I am cheesy. I adore cheese in all shapes, colors and sizes, metaphorically, literally and figuratively. If you like to think of yourself as a world-weary, cynical being who is incapable of responding to human emotions, save your time and close this window. But if you decide to read anyway, be warned that this is cheese galore. What you are about to do is jump head-first into a tub of cheese and splash around in it, and no matter how many times I try to rephrase that to make it sound bad I fail.

You have been warned.

Based very loosely on a true story.You're free to interpret which parts are true, but I'm not responsible for what you read into it.
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Oh shit oh shit oh shit oh shit oh shit

He woke up at 6 AM; had to wrestle with his bag's zipper -which he could swear he'd packed last night- for a whole fifteen minutes; looked for his keys for another twenty minutes only to find them balled up in one of his socks and stuffed deep inside the bag he'd just zipped up; cursed colorfully while hopping around on one leg because he'd been trying to force the other into a pair of jeans which he soon came to realize was his hoodie. Long story short, he was late. He had an hour to somehow check out of the hotel, rush out into the hustle and bustle that is New York City, hail a cab and get to the station before the train left, which of course it did... only 2 minutes before he reached the platform.

Perfect. Now what? he'd just missed the last train out of Grand Central Station for another seven hours, because apparently specifically his train line had to undergo maintenance. It was no good brooding over it, but he was screwed. He had no idea what to do with three large bags and a very important business meeting that he was now definitely going to miss. It made no logistical sense to take a cab back to his hotel because the round trip would cost him about four hours anyway, including check-in and check-out, and he wasn't in the mood to make another booking for the night, knowing that he was definitely not going to use it. Sighing, he steeled himself for a long wait.

What he hadn't steeled himself for was a face-full of steaming hot latte.

Doubled over in agony, he desperately tried to wipe the scalding liquid off his face, while someone tried to apologize over and over as they handed him tissue paper. He felt so miserable at that moment that at some point his howls of pain turned into laughter. Confused, the person (who he now realized was a girl) stepped back uncertainly as though unsure what he was doing. Gasping for breath, he said "I think I owe you another latte, since I'm the reason you spilled this one". He looked her in the eyes, and when she saw the laughter in his, she gave a nervous chuckle, as though relieved that she hadn't just ticked off a mass murderer who was about to disembowel her and chew on her kidney. Soon they were both laughing so hard that her face was probably redder than his (even though he'd probably had second degree burns).

After going to the pharmacy and getting ointment for his burns, they started talking. Her name was the prettiest name he'd ever heard; it made him think of rainbows and milk chocolate. Sooner than should be possible for people who were hanging out together for the first time, they were clicking. They started talking about life, grand central, missed trains, missed opportunities, pie (I really like pie), politics, that interview he had with this company he was considering moving to, and they talked a lot about their families, ancestors and what they wanted to do with our lives. She was obviously a very strong, independent woman who was both very opinionated and accepting of other points of view, but was smart enough to pull it off without seeming like a know-it-all. The conversation was a nice break from the standard New York fare of only putting on an interested face while secretly thinking about pizza.

Let's take a second to appreciate pizza.

And we're back.

So anyway, it was past noon now, and he'd begun to really see her (partially because his eyelids were less swollen now). She really was a beautiful creature. She had long, luscious brown hair with a small blonde streak at its end; she had flawless skin, the kind that makes your skin look like frayed lizard scales in comparison. Her lips were just the right size; not thin enough to look like they were drawn on with a pencil, and not big enough to make you vaguely wonder if they double as airbags. They were perfectly red, without any signs of make-up or lip gloss. When she smiled, showing the cutest set of teeth that twinkled playfully in the sunlight, time stood still as he tried not to smile back stupidly like a mindless idiot. Though breathtakingly beautiful, however, none of her individual features could hold a candle to her eyes. He realized he must have been staring at her for a long time without hearing anything, and that his swollen face must look exceedingly hideous in stark contrast, but somehow it didn't seem to matter. When she paused for breath, he took off her glasses and looked into her eyes, and she looked back.

Her eyes were by far the most beautiful eyes he'd ever seen. It was as if Leonardo Da Vinci had used the Mona Lisa as a failed first attempt before wiping his ass with it and starting on her as his real masterpiece. Perfectly almond-shaped, confident, unblinking; her eye-contact said it all. And there was never a dull moment staring into them, because in a certain light they seemed as blue as the ocean on a clear day, while sometimes the light caught them at a certain angle which made them look as green as... (what's a pretty green thing? Frog? Pickle?) freshly cut grass on a warm summer day. If you were lucky enough, you might even see the grey in them, revealing a sad and mysterious past.

Suddenly a cloud blocked the sunlight, and as her eye-color dimmed he became aware that he was looking at a human being, not a painting. He must have stared at her for hours, but she didn't seem to mind... Is it possible that she'd felt the same way? Something in her eyes seemed to say so... It was a signal. A green light. He leaned in closer and...

The rudest awakening possible as the conductor announced the final call for her train.
Their time was up.

They both ran to the platform, and he hurriedly hugged her as she got on the train. She turned and looked back, and they shared a moment of sorrow as they both knew they would never see each other again. The train then pulled out of the station and out of sight forever... The moment had passed. He'd waited too long. And right then he knew that he would always regret it.
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There you go, triple helpings of cheese as promised. Since you're going to need a shower anyway, I'll go ahead and indulge my narcissism by talking about myself for a bit. I'm the easiest person in the world to fall in and out of love. My pride and my moodiness make me change my opinion about people all the time... but I despise wasted opportunities and what-ifs. I sometimes tend to fall head over heels for people, girls I've JUST met, and then get over them in 24 hours, sometimes more and sometimes less. Yep, I'm crazy and cheesy (chazy?). I'm chazy but you like it... loca loca loca. Admit it, you smiled at that. Or you have no sense of humor and I feel sorry for you.

Only one last thing to say: you know who you are.

Addio, occhi bellissimi.
Arrivaderci, bella.

Humanity's Hypocrisies

A word of warning: This is an unorthodox post. If you are not into theological philosophy (and human psychology), this is the time to close this page. If you find this post offensive, read the note at the end.
This post in no way represents my own personal feelings or beliefs, I'm a practicing Muslim... It is simply a work of fiction, narrated by an atheist protagonist.

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Was it all in vain? Is this really the end?

Questions that course through a victim's head... one who regrets his choices. As I sat there, silently forsaking everything I thought I'd stood for, I wondered whether my precious logic or reason would come to my aid now. Can one pray to logic, I wonder? I would have laughed out loud if it wasn't for the whole "imminent death" thing.

I am not a religious man. I've never been the guy who prays or does anything remotely spiritual. Yes, I was born to believe that there is a God and that we should worship him, but I never really understood why. If there is an all-powerful creator of the world we live in, does he really need the insignificant sniveling of little old me- less than a spec of dust to a blue whale on the scale of the universe? Why would my prayers matter? I can't make God grant me my wishes... and what's the worst I can do if he doesn't answer my prayers? Sulk in an insignificant corner in an insignificant room in an insignificant country on an insignificant planet in an insignificant galaxy? Oh wow, that's powerful. What would compel such an all-knowing entity to help me with my daily struggles?

And the opposite is true. I found it hard to believe that such a deity would care whether I worshiped Him or not. Why would He smite me with the wrath of a thousand lightning bolts just because I failed to pray? Surely He would have bigger concerns than myself? Does He have a desire for control? Small chance of that; a God transcends urges and desires...

Then there was the obvious; pain and suffering and war and famine in every corner of the globe. The premise that every religion is based on is that God loves us and wants us to lead happy lives, yet the world has only seen a few decades of peace in the last two millennia. If an all-powerful being were capable of stopping that, why is He blind to the cries of his creations? And if that were the case, would humanity owe Him obedience, or defiance?

The religious texts didn't help; each was as unbelievable as the next. One man gathered all the known animal species in the world on a single boat which survived a disastrous flood? A man walked on water, and came back from the dead? A man lived inside a whale? Whenever I asked too many questions about these events, I was always told to take it on faith; that the whole point of faith is that there is no proof. I was told to protect my mind from such blasphemous thoughts, lest I forsake my religion. That was the last straw... A deity who controlled my very thoughts was not a welcome addition to my adult life, and so after giving it a lot of thought, I decided I was an atheist and embraced my new life-style on my 28th birthday. It wasn't much of a change, really... I'd already been an atheist at heart for years and hadn't practiced any of my religion's teachings, I just hadn't had the courage to openly admit it to myself until then.

Seven months after that fateful decision saw me fastening my seat-belt on a flight to London to attend an important meeting with my company's CEO. My life had completely turned around... I did whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted to. I had no restrictions, save for a flimsy moral code I'd made for myself. I answered to no one but me (and my boss at work) and partied as hard as anyone. I went home with a different girl every night, kicked her out before breakfast on the next day, went to work, then back home to change, then to the bar where I'd drink, smoke up and maybe snort some coke while I OD'ed on ecstasy or acid or whatever drug I had easy access to that night. Then I'd pick a girl I like (if I were still remotely sober), take her home and the cycle repeated itself. Being atheist didn't mean I had to be immoral, but I allowed myself a lot of freedoms I shouldn't have and I embraced the mistakes I made with a promise to make them again. It was the Neo-American dream, and I was soaking up every glorious drop of it. Now I was on my way to my company's headquarters, probably for a promotion and a big fat bonus cheque.

At least that was the plan...

Instead, halfway through the flight, the stewardesses started darting back and forth between the cabin and the cockpit, in an apparent hurry. Not long after that, the oxygen masks dropped, and people started panicking. Infants screamed; fathers tried to reassure their daughters while in desperate need of a hug themselves; and some people started hyperventilating and passing out. The Captain's grim voice suddenly cracked over the airplane's intercom: "Ladies and Gentlemen, this is your captain speaking. We have lost the right engine and will have to make an emergency landing while the left engine is still operational. We kindly ask that you remain seated with your seat-belts on and not panic. Our flight attendants will be passing by shortly to help you take the brace position. Thank you for choosing British Airways". Well, maybe he didn't say that last sentence, but his cocky British accent screamed it... I had a vision of the pilot wearing a monocle and a top hat while sipping tea, and I was just going to laugh when I realized I was probably going to die.

Right on cue, as if the left engine was following my train of thought, there was an explosion on my left and the plane took a nose dive. That was when I knew there was no way out of it. I would die, now. Time stopped.

Was it all in vain? Is this really the end?

I took a look at my three decades on Earth, and decided that I really didn't like how I used them. I didn't help anyone, I didn't have a family, I had no friends to speak of. What was the point of my life? Why was I born? This can't be it! Here I was, dying a thousand miles from home, and in two weeks after the news of my airplane crashing fade from the headlines, I would be forever forgotten... I had left nothing behind to speak of.

And that was when I started praying.

Through a haze of tears and cries and debris smashing through the cabin as we plummeted towards the ground, I started praying. Silently at first, but soon I found myself screaming my prayers at the top of my lungs, over the deafening roar of the engine and the rush of wind past my ears as the plane started disintegrating... perhaps I was hoping that maybe the louder I prayed the more likely I'd be heard. I internally resigned myself to either an eternity of nothingness, or an eternity of damnation... I was unsure which was worse. I hated myself at that moment. I hated my weakness.

I hated that I wished I'd made a different call, and maybe had more faith.
I hated that I secretly hoped there would still be life after death, even though I'd reasoned that they were just children's stories to teach them to cope with death.
I hated that I found myself praying to the very deity I'd forsaken years ago, hoping He'd take me back and forgive my sins.
I hated that my new Gods, Logic and Reason, had no way of saving me and I felt powerless to do anything about it.

But most of all, I hated my own hypocrisy. I'd been an atheist when it suited me, and now I was praying when there was something to gain from it. It was the height of irony that what I'd spent half my adult life ardently denying was now what every fiber in my being wished for... my last hope; my last shot at existence after the crash.

As I drifted out of consciousness, only one thought remained in my head:

I hope I've been wrong.

"Every atheist is religious once the plane starts falling".

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This last quote is not my own, but it inspired me to write this. It was necessary to use first-person perspective to better capture the protagonist's feelings, but as I said before, these are not my beliefs; this character is purely fictional (and 28). I think this post will manage to piss off both the religiously devout and the atheists, and I think I deserve a medal for that. Seriously though, no offense intended to either party.