Oasis

I've always hated the sun.

It's ironic that of all places, I was born in Egypt where the sun is an unwanted constant companion. It's that annoying acquaintance you have who keeps insisting that you're best friends and tries to say "us" a lot in any context to put himself in the same league as you for his own weird personal agenda, or that persistent but not-so-bright girl who just won't get it and keeps trying to get with you even though the only way you could make it more clear that you're not interested is if you engraved the words "I DON'T LIKE YOU" on a bullet and shot her in the face with it.

I've always loved the London weather; gloomy, cold, dark and rainy... as moody and unpredictable as me. You know how people always say "be yourself"? Well you can bet London weather is being itself; it doesn't give the tiniest fuck about you or your plans or the arsenal of heavy swear words you will use when it starts raining randomly on a very sunny day in the middle of June... it just stays true to itself. I respect that. It shows strength of character, unlike the weak performance we see here in Egypt. It's like the weather lost its "Spring" and "Autumn (or Fall for y'all Americans)" DVDs and just keeps playing Summer and Winter all year and goes for a nap instead of doing it's job like a decent human being... but that's Egypt for you, even the weather doesn't do its job properly.

Even so, as these words passed through my exhausted, delirious brain, I would have given anything for a bit of Egyptian winter.

"One more step" I thought to myself, for what must have been the hundred thousandth time, but even as I thought it, I knew I was lying to myself. I lifted my head and scanned the horizons, and they were as dry and desolate as they'd been minutes ago, and as dry and desolate as they still would be when I eventually gave up, fell to my knees and surrendered to thirst and exhaustion. I hung my head again and focused on my own feet, slowly shuffling forward... it was better to not see how completely alone I was and how close I was to death.

I'd read somewhere that when you're lost in the desert -in the absence of any landmarks you can use to mark your progress- you unconsciously walk around in wide circles, because the muscles in your right leg (or left leg, if you're left-handed) are better developed and hence you will favor your right leg and walk to the left (or right) without even knowing it... in other words, I was even more screwed that I'd already been. Even if I were somehow capable of walking in a straight line, there was very little hope I would ever find my way out of that scorched hell... so imagine the progress I was making when I wasn't even moving forward at all.

The wind picked up. "Perfect, just what I needed" I thought to myself bitterly... a random shuffle of the sand dunes I'd been trying to memorize to mark my way forward... and sure enough, before I knew it a nice little sandstorm was brewing up to further obscure my vision and give me even less hope of ever finding my way out of that God-forsaken desert. Oh well... it's not like I could get any more fucked, right? I would have even welcomed the sound of any wild animals. An eagle, a fox, even a lion... anything that would indicate the presence of water anywhere in the vicinity... But alas, the only forms of life I'd run into so far were cacti, ants, beetles and the occasional snake.

I kept moving ahead, with no end in sight. The sun was directly overhead, beating down on my head mercilessly. I prayed for a heatstroke or a sunstroke... or any kind of stroke, really. Anything that would take me away from this terrible reality. The irony was that the sandstorm was partially blocking the sun, which was giving me a partial respite from its cruel gaze... but I think I would have rather taken my chances with the sun than the sandstorm... At least when it came to it, I'd be able to see the place where I died. At least I'd be able to choose the place where I'd finally give up and collapse. It was the tiniest bit of control possible, but still better than dying and being buried immediately by a vicious sandstorm and never being discovered for years.

The sandstorm raged on, getting more and more intense by the... by the what? Minute? Hour? I couldn't tell time anymore. The only thing I could say with a certainty is that it was still morning... but how long until dusk or how long I'd been stuck in that sandstorm, I had no clue. And it's not like dusk brought about any form of relief; I often laughed off the idea of finding shelter... there were no trees, no cliffs, no walls... nothing to shelter me from the wind, and whatever hell-spawn in this wasteland that cared enough to attack me here was welcome to do it. Frankly I felt sorry for whatever creature called this sandpit its home, and they were welcome to whatever fresh meat they could find, even my own. Besides, I didn't really care at that point. When I got too tired to move, I'd lie down wherever I stood and shiver myself to sleep in the freezing desert night until the sun woke me up again the next morning. If I were to not wake up, would that really have been so terrible?

The sky had shifted from yellow to brown now. I couldn't see my hand when I held it out in front of my face. My world smelled like dust and tasted like sand. Pain was my only reality, and thirst was a vulture, circling hungrily overhead as I grew steadily weaker and my steps began to falter. I stumbled and fell to one knee. Shakily, I got up again, only to get knocked on my back by a ferocious gust of wind. For a second I considered staying down, but my temper returned to me and I mentally reproached myself viciously. I wasn't going to die lying on my back. Furious, I got up and resumed my lonely trek. If only thirst were a tangible foe to confront... if only it were something I could fight,  lose to with dignity and die nobly.

I fell again. This time I couldn't find it in me to get up, but I could still crawl. Only one thought was in my head: "I'm not going to die lying on my back". It fueled me, and I moved forward. "One more step" I thought to myself, knowing in my heart that I was a liar. I was dying, and sooner rather than later. I crawled, and I crawled. At some point I tried to get up again, and successfully walked a few paces before collapsing and giving up on upright movement altogether. Before I knew it I was moving forward at the prone position, like a soldier avoiding enemy fire. But the enemy fire was all around me, and there was nothing more I could do. I could feel the first stages of delirium setting in. It was almost as if I could literally see light at the end of the tunnel. In fact, now that I thought about it, the light at the end of the tunnel looked suspiciously like the glint of sunlight on water. Could it be?

The sight gave me a last desperate surge of power. I got back on my feet, and I stumbled forward again. I walked in the vague direction of my vision, and sure enough I could see it again. I began to run... but running in the sand is a bad idea and I felt the last dregs of energy draining away... so I slowed my pace down to a walk again. I could see it now. If it was a mirage, it was a crueler mirage than anything I'd ever seen. As I neared what looked like a pond, I finally became certain...  I'd made it to an oasis. It was the most beautiful sight I could have ever seen... palm trees swaying in the sandstorm, green grass, even some desert hares that were taking shelter from the wind against the face of a small hill... But of course, I saw none of that. I saw my salvation. I jumped into the pond, opened my mouth wide and drank the sweet nectar of life. As the water flowed past my cracked lips and parched tongue, hot from the sun but more pleasant than anything I'd ever tasted in my life, watering my insides and filling me with the warm glow of hope... I smiled. At that moment, lying there in a stagnant pool of water in the middle of a desert, I felt hole, safe and sane again. At that moment, I knew life couldn't get more perfect.

I was saved. I wasn't going to die.


********************************************************************

Thank you for being my oasis.

Boulevard of Broken Dreams (see what I did there?)

Closed his suitcase, put on his coat;
It's always windy at the start of the road
His hair a mess, his heart a load
Of barely suppressed melancholy.

A last hungry look at his room before
Leaving forever... he felt sick and sore.
He shuffled slowly towards the door
Out of his house, his home, his life.

And how ironic did it feel to him then
How long was the walk to the door, but again...
He used to cross it in two strides when
He wasn't weighed down with his thoughts.

The wind blew air, crisp and bold
Countless clouds cast gloom untold
The rain beat at him, both wet and cold...
Just the way he liked it.

A fitting tribute; a farewell too grim
A sunless sky, its light so dim.
The foreshadowing wasn't lost on him...
The heavens themselves were weeping.

As if on cue, his sadness grew
Here's an interesting dilemma for you:
Should you feel loved, or lonely and blue
If your faithful friends were ice and gloom?

He beseeched the skies in mute appeal,
He begged to stay, but he could feel
The ice-cold rain on his face, like steel
And knew his silent plea was rejected.

"This is not your place", he could hear them say
You've never belonged and you cannot stay.
If you so wish, you can visit one day...
but then you shall return to your lonely road.

He lifted his head; gave a wordless cry,
Of pain and fury, his voice so high.
His fate was cruel, he knew not why...
This path was chosen for him.

He calmed himself and took a deep breath
And searched for his pride in his icy depths
He knew this lonely road was his death...
But he'd go there with his head held high.

And so he set out, on his lonely road
At a brisk pace, which never slowed.
This wasn't the happy ending he was owed...
But he wasn't going down without a fight.

The Empty Room

He entered the room hesitantly, anxious of who he would find inside. He had grown to expect it to be empty, so he wasn't sure what he was hoping for... but as his eyes swept the empty room from left to right and back again, he realized that he had been holding his breath and that his body had involuntarily tensed into a wary primal crouch; a fighting stance he couldn't quite justify. Furious with himself, he straightened up and took a deep breath. He shouldn't have been so apprehensive after so many years... He should have stopped caring by now.

No one was there. But more to the point, she wasn't there either.

Just to be sure, he crossed the room and checked the lock on the door that led into the second, smaller room which hadn't been open for years... And even though he was relieved that the lock still seemed intact and the door securely closed, a small part of him hoped the door would swing open and she would burst through. He banished these thoughts as mercilessly as one would kick a puppy... There was no place for them.

He thought back on all the times he'd done the same thing over the years, every day like clockwork. At first he never seemed to notice the second door; the room was always occupied by at least one visitor, not all of whom stayed for very long. Some would stay for a few months, others would stay for a few years. There were a few who stayed for days, or even hours in some cases. In more than once case there were two visitors at the same time, but they never stayed too long and they always left in the end. Everyone eventually left, abandoning him to this cold, lonely room which was starting to feel more and more like a doctor's waiting room by the day.

Except her, of course. She was in the second room, and didn't seem to be in a hurry to leave.

As the years went by, his visitors steadily diminished and grew less frequent, but scarcely a month went by without him hosting someone for at least a few days... And worryingly in such cases, when she ended up leaving like they always did, lately he'd caught himself wondering if someone else would come in... If maybe that was it; and that he would never again walk into this room to see someone waiting for him, smiling and happy to see him.

Sometimes he tried to re-decorate the room in a futile effort to add a more personal touch and make it a less miserable place to be, but there was very little he could do; the room was painted a sterile white; there were no windows; and even when he replaced the leather desk chairs with some cheerfully colorful couches to make the place more friendly, they seemed bizarrely out of place in this black and white nightmare. The room seemed specifically designed as a waiting room; a staging area where no one was allowed to settle in and call it home. Some of the visitors occasionally added some personal touches here and there in an admirable attempt to settle in, but the room remained cold and uninviting, despite their best intentions... And when they left, the little mementos that remained of their efforts somehow made the room even sadder, so he always removed them.

Until they stopped visiting altogether.

More and more days would pass between visits until one day, when it had been a month since he had seen someone in the room, it dawned on him. He realized what was happening. The room had finally pushed away even the most enthusiastic and optimistic of its temporary occupants, dooming him to stay alone in that depressing room, like an angry parent sentencing their child to a time-out to think about what they'd done... Except he had no idea what he'd done or why he deserved to be punished in such a brutal manner. He could never bear to stay in the room for more than a few days himself, but that was because it left him so much time to overthink and obsess, so he made it a point to leave the room and only pass by once a day to check if someone had come calling. As the days went by, he became less and less disappointed when he saw the empty room; he'd grown to expect it.

Until one day he inexplicably, unforgivably started toying with the idea of opening the locked door. He knew that if he opened the floodgates, the metaphorical flood would drown him, but he couldn't see how even that would be worse than being alone in that room any longer.

And when he started having these thoughts, it was like the spell was broken. Memories, images and feelings he'd had no idea he still had came rushing back, filling him with melancholy and a deep, aching longing more intense than anything he'd ever felt from the countless visitors who'd passed by this room. Even though he was shivering on the outside, he suddenly felt warm and fulfilled... the same feeling one would get when drinking a steaming mug of hot chocolate as a snow storm raged outside their window.

But there was pain as well. A wound he'd thought had healed a long time ago was still stubbornly open, and the years had made it fester until somehow he knew it would never heal properly. But as painful as it was, it was invigorating as well; he felt more alive in those few seconds than he'd felt in all the years he'd lived since he'd locked the door.

Finally, something clicked in his mind. Come hell or high water, he owed it to himself to open that door. As long as a part of him still clung to her, he would never be free. The room would forever remain cold, because he made it cold. He didn't allow anyone in because he was afraid he might have to lock them up in that second room.

A fury he had never known in his life took him at that moment. He would be damned if he lost the battle just because he didn't try... with a trembling hand, he reached out and unlocked the door. Wordlessly, he mouthed a last prayer, and then turned the handle and pulled the door open.

And then he drowned, as he always knew he would... But at least the room had an occupant now.

And at least he tried.

Still a Better Love Story Than Twilight

He pulled up at a traffic light. Well, you wouldn't call it a traffic light... more like a traffic free-for-all...

He lived in Egypt, you see. Egypt spits on your puny mortal "traffic lights". And whenever there happen to be traffic lights, they're more of a guideline than actual traffic control, followed only by foreigners who haven't been Egyptianized yet; fussy moms and old people.. but I digress. The point is, he was on his way to work as usual, but had neglected to sacrifice to the ancient Egyptian God of traffic "Amon-Shorta" (only Egyptians will get this joke), and lo and behold he was already two hours late. 

It was one of these days where everything goes wrong; alarm doesn't go off, nothing to eat in the fridge, spending half an hour ironing a stubbornly crinkled shirt that looks like it was dragged through the Vietnam war.. which is ironic, because he ended up burning a hole right through the sleeve and having to iron another shirt instead. "Ain't bachelor life grand?" he thought, as he frantically looked for the keys that were in his pocket and the glasses he was already wearing while simultaneously hopping on one foot trying to wear a sock on his other foot, stumbling over his shoes, and falling face-first into a box of left-over pizza from three days ago he kept forgetting to throw out.

Rushing out of the house with small crumbs of pizza crust stuck in his beard, he realized he forgot to wear his shoes and rushed back in again furiously cursing in his most colorful profanities at no one in particular. When he was finally out of the house, already half an hour late and looking about as sharp as a spoon or a particularly dull butter knife, he was greeted by the sight of the bawab (or janitor/security guard/morality police/delivery guy/garage caretaker combo, for all non-Egyptians) who had just covered his car in soap. Ironically, the bawab assumed that because the protagonist (let's call him Mahmoud) was so late, he'd decided to skip work altogether so it was a good time to wash his car. 

Mahmoud, being as polite as the British, more hot-tempered than an Italian mobster from Sicily who's just watched his sister get whistled at by a mobster from another family (also smarter than a German nuclear physicist and hotter than Brad Pitt and awesome at making huge drawn-out similes and currently single, ladies ;) ) had to fight the urge to throttle the bawab for having such a brilliant deductive mind that led him to the conclusion that because he was late it made sense to make him even more late, because of reasons. Instead, he wore a forced smile and thanked the bawab while inwardly wishing him and his family a painful death by anal sodomy, asked him to rinse off his car, and drove out of the garage all fast-and-furious-like at 70 kph (requiring considerable skill at maneuvering, if I might add) with heavy rock playing on his radio, only to get stuck in a traffic jam immediately outside.

Days went by; seasons changed; Kanye West and Kim Kardashian had a baby they named "North" in an act of complete dickery bordering on child-abuse; a nuclear Armageddon wiped out 99% of the human race; and still he found himself slumped in his car in heavy traffic, having shout-outs with people who cut him off and thinking longingly of death while his iPod shuffle tortured him with extremely ironic songs like "Happy" and "Highway to Hell". It was a mark of how terrible his mood was that when he saw one of the 3 pile-ups on the Ring Road that day, he caught himself inwardly wishing he'd been in one of them.

"Aaaaand of course", he thought; that today of all days would be the day he would receive 12 emails when it wasn't even 10 30 yet; all requiring his urgent attention.. and what worst-case-scenario-nightmare would it be, without his boss calling him 5 times to ask him where he was, his voice gradually rising from phone call to phone call -ranging in pitch from his carefully-cultivated, shareholder-reassuring, calm baritone to a high-pitched squeak you'd expect from a rat whose tail you stepped on- as he hoarsely yelled about corporate policy and how employees should always make sure to be at work before noon and how he didn't care about traffic jams or Armageddons or the environment or murdered kittens.

I'm not sure if you can tell, but he wasn't having a nice day.

It was while he was seriously beginning to consider getting out of his car and just running to work that he noticed her in his side-view mirror... 

She was eating a sandwich and chain-smoking while yelling at the guy riding shotgun, spittle flying out of her mouth and coating his poor sweat (and now spittle)-drenched face as he cowered for cover from his 50-year old obese mother's pastrami rain of death- wait no, this isn't her, you pervs.. the other car, beside it.

Yes, that one.

In stark contrast to the typical Egyptian ma7shi-fuelled machine of hatred and despair mentioned above, she was simply beautiful (yes, now it's time for the sappy part, I'm a hopeless romantic, deal with it).

She was wearing the most elegant bored face of all-time. Taken out of context, you couldn't tell she was even bored at all... He looked at his face in the rear-view mirror, and saw the face of a middle-aged man who had curiously grown some more white hairs than earlier that morning, and suddenly noticed the pizza crumbs in his beard. He casually brushed them off while pretending to stroke his beard thoughtfully, hoping to convey an era of wisdom rather than misery and self-loathing. Tired of looking at his milk-curdling frown, he looked at her again and immediately felt better. The world was still a beautiful place if such an angelic face was still possible to exist.. in that miserable setting, most of all.

Her wavy blonde curls were elegantly sparkling in the early morning sun. You could tell that she didn't have time to do whatever it is girls do to their hair when they wake up in the morning -maybe she'd rushed out of the house as late as he was- but somehow he doubted that she could have done anything more to make it look any better. That girl could wake up in the morning and go straight to a fancy fund-raiser without even running a comb through her hair, and it gave her a low-maintenance vibe that somehow made her even more attractive than any carefully-polished trophy wife could ever be. 

He must have been drooling too much because suddenly she noticed him staring at her.

It's a well-documented fact that Mahmoud doesn't like hazel-eyes, but hers were different... they weren't hazel; they were sunlight incarnated in human eyes... It almost hurt to look directly into them. They were perfectly-shaped, sharp and intelligent while still being playful and humorous.. The type of eyes you usually see at the optician's in advertisements for contact lenses.

And then she smiled.

Before that day, Mahmoud could be quoted as saying that the happiest moment of his life was that one time when he had three slices of cheesecake at Cheesecake Factory and almost fainted from the sugar rush... Now he could say that her smile beat even that, and gave him the same sugar-rush.

Not only did her smile reveal teeth as hideous as a camel's- just kidding, it's a check to see who's still with me. 

Not only did her perfect, strawberry-red lips part to reveal porcelain-white teeth that glinted in the sunlight -reminding him on the only level of his existence that wasn't captivated by her smile that he should see his dentist one of these days- but also when her smile touched her eyes, they transformed into -green goblins made of cheese (still with me?)- beautiful pools of molten gold, full of life, energy and optimism. He could tell that this is not just a beautiful girl; this is a beautiful girl to have intelligent conversations-with; be yourself-around; laugh yourself into an early grave with and generally have enough fun to be illegal in Egypt. This is a girl to marry, not to stare at for.. 5 minutes? 30 minutes? An hour? He couldn't tell how long it had been... But time had stopped for him, and his surroundings didn't seem to matter one bit.

Inexplicably, he could already picture spending the rest of his life with her and growing old together.

They stared and smiled at each other in the middle of the traffic for what seemed like ages, and in the middle of the whirlpool of anger and Mediterranean temper and swear words and remorseless sunlight, they found happiness.. they found love. 

Even if only for a few brief moments before they received the cosmic middle finger in the form of traffic magically clearing, just when he was about to get out of his car to go talk to her.

In some ways, parting with a fleeting imaginary romance in traffic was much harder than some break-ups he'd had.. knowing that there was a lot of potential, wasted because fate hadn't made their lives intersect in a more sociable setting was a very hard realization...

But seriously, fuck traffic in Egypt.

Stockholm Syndrome

Here goes...

For the first time in my life, I can't express myself. I have so much to say that every time I try writing this I get overwhelmed by the sheer emotion I feel is incommunicable through words. How do you describe abstract concepts like time or energy or love?

I don't know why I love Egypt. There, I said it. There is no logical reason for it except maybe Stockholm Syndrome. Why would you love an oppressive country with a beyond corrupt government and completely illiterate and ignorant populace who judge you for being unique and hate you for being different? Why would you be loyal to a country that isn't loyal to you, where your rights are outright denied and your blood is cheaper than dirt? Why would you want to live somewhere where the populace excels in classifying you according to your looks, background, education, social class, religion, religion, religion and political opinions?

Why would you want to live in a country whose happiness rating ranks is in the bottom 35 countries in the world? Why would you have any sense of loyalty to a country that hasn't provided you with even the most basic of services for the taxes you pay, where you pay for your own education, healthcare, housing and transportation (if you can afford it)? Why would you want to work in a country where there hasn't been an original thought since the pyramids, which are apparently our only achievement in human history?

Why would you want to raise your children in a country where the education system is arguably the worst in the world? Why would you want to expose them to a private school where they would make friends with/get bullied by some entitled, spoiled, inadequately disciplined classmates who would crush creativity or initiative out of them at a very young age? and if you can't afford a private school, why would you send them to a glorified penitentiary where they won't learn anything other than doing drugs and sexually harassing girls for no other reason than because they don't know any better?  Why would you raise them in a country where it's apparently acceptable if they get killed on campus for demonstrating? And if they should happen to graduate alive, why would you want them to get a degree from either a terrible public school or an even worse private university where you have to pay half your life savings to give them a better shot at a job in a completely saturated job market due to a stagnant and failing economy? Why would you want their biggest achievement in their young adult life to be landing a stable, well-paying job (never mind a job they like)?

Why would you want to spend half your life in traffic where it's only getting worse by the day due to the complete lack of public transport infrastructure and complete reliance on cars? Why would you want to live in a country where it's perfectly normal to get 4-hour daily power outages during the unforgiving summer? Why would you want your wife/daughter sexually harassed or raped just because she showed her face outside the protective confines of your car? Why would you want to have to make a choice between the non-existent public transportation system or paying more than double the price for a car because of customs that are supposed to be there to encourage local manufacturers who don't actually exist? And after you buy the overpriced car, you make peace with the fact that it won't last for even half of its expected life because the "roads" we have are 50% potholes and completely neglected... and while we're at it, be sure to say your prayers before you drive because you might just be one of the 12,000 people who die every year in a car crash on Egyptian roads.

Why would you want to live in a country where you are there to serve the police, not the other way around? Why would you want to call the police to report a robbery and have them hang up on you or tell you "what  am I supposed to do about it?"? Why would you want to live in a country where governors are exclusively ex-policemen whose only job is to control the populace and crackdown on demonstrators? Why would you want to have to have connections to finish your government paperwork unless you want to spend months getting a paper signed by two underpaid, bureaucratic sadists who just want to ruin your life? Why would you want to be in a country where it is perfectly normal for a government official to be earning a 6 digit salary while more than a quarter of the population (about 23 million people) can't afford to feed themselves, and have no access to electricity or drinking water? Why would you want to live in a country where the health system is one of the most corrupt and inefficient in the world, where doctors are paid less than taxi drivers and patients are treated like moneybags... and if you can't afford medicine, then make way for someone who can?

Why would you want to live in a country that actively encourages xenophobia to gain legitimacy? Why would you want to live in a country where the armed forces have a monopoly over the industry and use the profits to line their pockets rather than modernize the obsolete military? Why would you want to live in a country where the ministry of defense is in complete, unparalleled charge of governing the country and even deals with multinational companies to build power stations have to be signed by the defense minster for some reason? Why would you want to live in a country where it's blasphemy to denounce the government's actions when they kill unarmed protesters and you get labelled a traitor and sentenced to prison?

I don't have the answer to any of those questions. I feel betrayed  by the promise of change and heartbroken by the lack of it. I feel like a gardener who watched his garden get trampled by stampeding elephants. I feel like a father who lost his firstborn. Egypt depresses me... and even though I have completely lost all faith and hope, for some reason I still feel like Egypt is my home, and I don't know what I am beyond "Egyptian". No matter how much I hate Egypt, I still can't help loving it... the reason why is beyond me.

I was planning to write a pros and cons-type of post where I first list everything I hate and then say everything I like and that at the end of the day they cancel out... but they don't. I couldn't find anything good to write about, other than "traffic doesn't feel so bad when you're laughing it off with a friend". I can't find two good things to say about a country I apparently can't get over...

 Yep, I'm calling it. Stockholm Syndrome.

Dear Diary

It's been a month since I've last written anything, and for me that was an entirely different life... a different world. Some people I cared deeply about are now barely acquaintances, and some concerns I had before I left feel no longer even slightly relevant. But don't you worry about me... I still have plenty to obsess about.

You see, what started this off is one day, when I left the office early. Usually between work, studying, cooking, laundry, grooming, gymming and all the other things I need to do to keep functioning, I don't have time for myself. I haven't talked to my family in weeks (aside from Whatsapp) and it's been so long since I've talked to any of my friends that most of them are probably going to have a hard time remembering who I am if we run into each other by chance somewhere... Not that there is much chance of that happening even if they're in town, because the only places I've been frequenting since I came here are my apartment and work.

But here's the ironic part: when I'm busy with all of the stuff mentioned above, I don't have time to contemplate... I'm a machine with a strict routine that doesn't have the luxury of alone time. When I'm not doing one of the above activities I'm going out with other people at the office because it's expected of me (and a little because I want to), and so I've found that I didn't really have time to think about anything during my first month here.

So when suddenly I did have some time, shit got real.

Going home relatively early and having a frozen pizza for dinner left plenty of time for some gaming... which is usually awesome when I'm being antisocial on purpose back in my room in Egypt (a room I'll probably never live in again, but that's a story for another time) but less awesome when I realized that for perhaps the first time in my adult life, being antisocial is no longer entirely up to me. When I got bored of gaming and felt like going out for an hour or two, I realized I didn't have that many people I could call up to hang out with, especially with my roommate working late and the apartment being uncharacteristically empty.

And that scared me more than anything else I could think of.

As a responsible adult with a day job whose friends are also working and not always free to hang out, it's understandable for that sort of thing to happen... but usually what happens next is that I'd spend some quality time with my parents or I'd go annoy my sister for a bit. Meaning I never lacked for human interaction. I could afford to be antisocial. What's happening now that I'm a bachelor living alone in another country is quite the opposite, and it's not that I want to go out every day but the idea that I "can't" if I want to is enough to make me panic.

Although "can't" is really the wrong word; I have lots of people I can hang out with but I've been dealing with so many people at work I'd rather not deal with that I've grown tired of unnecessary relationships and forced friendships. It's a bit depressing that both parties know they would much rather be somewhere else with other people, but they're unfortunately stuck with each other. There's a mutual understanding -an unspoken agreement- that yeah I know we don't like each other that much, but we're both here so we might as well pretend to until it's time to leave. It doesn't feel real... because it's isn't real. Of course there are exceptions to this, and I've met some great people here... but that's the exception that proves the rule.

I miss my friends and family. I miss my depressing room back in Cairo. I miss the traffic on the way to work every day. I miss making spontaneous decisions to go out with friends at 9 PM on a Tuesday. I miss having someone clean up my room and do my laundry and prepare my food... Not to sound spoiled, but it's hard to to do that stuff if you're used to someone else doing it all the time. Even my annoying maid who I hated with every fiber of my being would be a welcome sight in my emotionless hotel room where I'm just a whiskey bottle and a few packs of cigarettes away from the stereotypical self-hating narcissist wasting away... except that I'm way too young for that.

And then there's her.

I don't know why fate toys with me so much. It is nothing short of a cruel joke, and I'm not laughing. It's not funny. If my life was a novel, only the most bitter, sadistic writer could have come up with this scenario. I miss her and I want to do something about it, but I don't really have any options. I have to choose between doing nothing and doing something really stupid, and I don't think I like either scenario... and I know she feels the same. Neither one of us needs to say anything, but we both know what's going on and we are both unsure what we should do about it... But what CAN we do? Long-distance is suicide for a healthy, long-term relationship, let alone one that hasn't even started yet. I suppose the best course of action is to not do anything, but I don't like it because it leaves too much room for misunderstandings.

So yeah, like I said, I don't think this post has a point... but the title should have given that away. If you're still here you have only yourself to blame. As for me, I'm completely burned out now and I've been writing this blog post for the past hour at work so evidently I don't give a flying fuck anymore. Let's hope the weekend brings some relief... Although it's unlikely because my roommate (who I've apparently grown too dependent on) is travelling for the weekend and I have the whole apartment, just for me and my thoughts...

Fun.

Alien

I'm not really sure what I'm here to say.  Maybe I'm feeling guilty because the last time I wrote something, it was still 2014... which doesn't seem so long ago, to be honest. Maybe I came here to vent. Maybe I felt like catching a whiff of my comfort zone, shattered beyond repair.

Or maybe I wanted to get some closure.

"Closure for what", you ask?  The end of life as I know it.

Anyone who's ever been within bitching distance of me knows how much I tend to romanticize things and get overly sentimental. Small wonder then, that I've grown so attached to my comfort zone, which I've taken to a whole new plane of existence. I've built towers and castles and palaces of solitude. I've spent so much time fortifying myself in that zone, building defenses and unbreakable walls and isolating myself in my endless quest to push away everyone who ever cared... maybe out of fear of weakness, or an unshakable desire for independence... or perhaps a bit of both.

At any rate, it worked. And you know what's ironic? It wasn't my choice this time.

All these years, I've taken a fierce pride in my minimal need for other people. Yeah, I have lots of friends. Sure, I have a loving family. I've heard it all before, so unroll your eyes or get out of my blog. My whole life is built around the fact that we come into this world alone, and we're going to exit it alone. Everyone you interact with is going to leave at some point, and the sooner you come to terms with it, the sooner you start being comfortable in your own company. Years spent trying to convince myself that friendships and relationships matter have been completely fruitless, because no human relationship is sacred. Ultimately, very few people would actually go out of their way to help or support their loved ones... and I've been one of that unlucky number for most of my life, so you'll forgive me if I'm a bit cynical, having received very little in return.

"But Bondok, you handsome bastard, you're like one of the most popular and awesome people I know and I'm standing in a queue of very hot girls who'd do anything for you and I kind of forgot my point!", you ask? Well have no fear because I have no idea where I was going with that anyways.

My point is, I've always had the choice. Whenever I wanted to switch between "social butterfly" mode and "antisocial lone wolf" mode, I only had to flick a mental switch. It was really that simple.

Now I won't really have that option.

"But Bondok, why are you being so vague and mysterious and OMG it's so sexy!", you ask? Like I said, I have no idea what I'm here to say. I'm just starting to wonder if this is what I really want. Maybe there is another way. Maybe I don't have to be a dark, brooding, self-defeating protagonist in a bad 80s movie. "Maybe you don't have to have imaginary conversations with yourself on your own blog, you sexy beast", you say? You're completely right, but stop sucking up to me because I'm getting tired of it.

Now I will have to get a one-way ticket out of my comfort zone, knowing the implications full well. I am forever gone, and will never return. I will be that alien, wandering around a strange alternate universe where I don't belong, knowing that I've been banished from the home I've been living in for 23 years. And now as I wander through the debris of my fallen towers and the empty halls of my comfort zone for the last time, I wonder if it was all worth it. I wonder if maybe I had it wrong. Maybe I didn't make use of a valuable resource that I won't have access to anymore. Maybe now that I'll have the rug pulled from under my feet, I could have used a soft cushion to break my fall.

But all I have is the emptiness and solitude. And what makes me worry is that that's the way I like it.

It feels a bit like home.