Shifting Homes

My fifth short story in 503 words


   Out of the blues, she came out, accompanied with all the fanfare of an expatriate engineer and the glamor of a lady from the good old days. I didn't know her before although she was from the same class of my graduation year. Thanks to the Internet, I have recognized one very cultured woman who challenged me and provoked my deep reservoir of knowledge to pop out. She had an unusual story of being a strong female more caring of her mind than her body. I have noticed later when I met her that she had fed both, giving a very rich intellect and a fat heavy built. Originating from a well to do Turkish-Egyptian background, where the father was working in wood trade and a mother working as an executive in a paper company, she had mingled in her childhood with the last remaining Jews, Greeks, Italians, Armenians and other nationalities that had connections with her family, when Alexandria was still reminiscent of a vanishing cosmopolitanism. The 1952 coup d'état had heavy financial consequences on her family assets and business, so came the firm antipathy that she holds up till now to the post Royal regimes. She obtained a fine education in Catholic language schools. Her parents managed to live one way or another under two regimes till the assassination of Sadat, which was the year of her admission to the faculty of engineering. After he secured her planned marriage as he did to her two sisters, her father died of a stroke.
  Finishing her university studies with excellence, getting pregnant and becoming embroiled in mundane details of daily living, she began to ask herself big questions about life, religion, the real contemporary history of Egypt and the future ahead.  She threw herself into reading intensively and deeply. She began to have contradictory opinions with her mother from one side and with her husband, who was a surgeon, from the other side. Getting a contract into a wealthy Gulf state came through relations with some authorities, and that was a temporary solution for her. She went to this hot burgeoning state, to work in a ministry with all sorts of personnel, mainly coming from the Indian subcontinent. She had been exposed to different customs, cultures, ideas, beliefs and styles of life. Her three children grew up, so too was her ambition, her mind, her personality, her bank account and a secret separation will. She accrue along those tumultuous years, a hate to anything related to Arabs, so she was plotting, without the awareness of her rival husband, a way to immigrate to Britain. Bit by bit, she increased the dose of animosity to her partner, to the degree of scandalous violent attitude. She accused him of many flaws, but to keep her children till reaching her newly adopting country, she passed her days with him, to use him later as a cover and a bridge. Eventually, she obtained both a post and an immigration visa for the whole family to the UK.

The Ordeal!

My first very short story

The Ordeal!

  Swinging between twilight sleep and periods of nap, Samy, in his brief moments of clarity, realised that he was bedridden with plaster casts around both legs, a thick dressing on his belly and many lines branched to his chest, neck and right forearm. Although the effect of sedation was strong, he pondered about what had gone wrong. Unwinding the reel, he remembered the anaesthetist's mask approaching his face and then unrecalled any more till this moment of fogginess.
     As he gradually grew more alert, he began to unreverse the sequence of painful events that he had gone through. Unabating was his ability to draw in details, the events that occurred around him, but in his current messy state he couldn't be definite. He began to recollect the accident that brought him here. Was it the truck  that had unstabled his sedan car pushing it to flip like a coin or was it his lack of attention following a dispute where he had quarrelled with his wife on her jealousy as usual. He was late to meet the clients at his office but one of these was a nagging old customer unabling him to concentrate with the others. If he would have left, one hour earlier, he may have avoided all this ordeal. Unbelieving in his workaholic state often reproached by his confidants, he dashed that day to his office, unfinishing the sumptuous lunch that he had been invited to.
      Fully awake now, feeling blessed to be alive, he watched the door opening to usher the arrival of a noisily talking doctor and a smiling nurse coming to examine him on the morning round. 

Written by Mohyee- in 276 words
N.B. (The retrograde fashion and the un-verbs are intentional)

My radio experience!

     Radio has been always near to my ears, heart and mind since the days of my childhood. It has for thousand of times, informed me, taught me, entertained me, comforted me and consoled me. I was all the time a receiver and never thought to interact by a phone call or a message to any of my favorite radio channels, let alone to be a guest in a radio studio to make a program. It didn't pass by my mind that one day, and very smoothly, I will be a radio content maker. And imagine what, in the field of preventive medicine and in French language too. Despite that the experience was short lived but it was quite successful. I recorded three consecutive episodes of 'Santé' in the recording studio of Radio Cairo. And although it was for gratis, I would have paid for such a happy experience.

I participated later by phone many times in the same vein; medicine and health matters. I would be happy to repeat the experience in the future but in a more professional way.

About the film, 'Whiplash'!

 



  'Whiplash' is a film that raises your blood pressure, upsets you and put you on your toes at times. But it is good cinema, with superb editing, photography, and lighting. The acting is excellent, especially J.K Simons in the role of Fletcher, who won an Oscar for the supporting actor. It all revolves around a young man (Andrew) obsessed with drums and to become a great player, to be recognized and remembered thereafter. But he is engulfed by a patronizing autocratic insulting cruel over-demanding chief of jazz band, (Fletcher). Andrew forgets everything about making friends or having a girlfriend or any distraction, but playing drums and training till bleeding his hands to excel. It is all about jazz music and the dialogue contains many musical terms. The confrontation grew between Andrew and Fletcher, to become complicated and intricate. The only one who really stood beside Andrew was his father. After a quarrel between both protagonists, And knowing about the suicide of trumpeter who was previously psychologically abused by Fletcher, Andrew was convinced to file a complaint against him. As result, Fletcher was excluded from the prestigious music college and fired. Fletcher then played piano at bars to earn his living. One night, after Andrew decided to leave drumming, he was aimlessly strolling at night beside bars, when he has seen the name of Fletcher on a sign, so he entered. Fletcher saw him, sat with him and convinced him to play with his new band in a concert. He was actually screwing him, to avenge his expulsion. But on the stage, Andrew improvised, when he didn't find the score sheet of the piece. Then in a final long shot scene, things turned upside down when Fletcher, changed hearts in favour of the young man at last, while he was playing frantically, a capriccio, his drums. What a strange film, with a peculiar idea but with all the ingredients of a good film. Don't see the film if you have heart or nerves troubles and sure not before going to sleep.

Psychological metamorphosis!

     We all know for sure, the masterpiece of Franz Kafka, 'The Metamorphosis'. The protagonist of the novel was transformed inexplicably into an insect. This was a physical transformation, and actually, the term, metamorphosis, gained more acceptance, popularity and spread after Kafka's novel. In my case, I am not turning into an insect neither good or a bad one, but I am undergoing a psychological change, as if I am overhauling myself from the inside. Consider it like, a renovation, a substitution or a rebuilding. After a thorough analysis of my feelings, my shortcomings, my failures, my expectations and my aspirations, I proceeded to work on my situation in the depth. I discovered that it is not an external change that will bring me serenity, balance, peace of mind and happiness, but an inner change will do the trick. So, it became imperative to act positively to the betterment of one's behavior, approach to people, and the whole personal philosophy as well.   

I decided to have only one face, to say what I think and feel, not to have double standards. It is not always easy or safe to be so, but it is very rewarding for my psyche. I couldn't stress more the importance to eliminate internal struggle for it has a deleterious effect on the person himself. To accomplish this, many points I considered to be imperative.  

Reaching out!

    To know that it is possible to get along with people is one thing and to immerse yourself in strong relationships of all sorts where you can express your full potential is another. This demands many talents, predisposition and experience. 

Those firm relations come in different sorts; blood links, love, infatuation, friendship, colleagueship and neighborship. In all these types of intricate relation, there are interactions at different levels. But underneath all of them is the psychological need to belong to someone, to a group and to an entourage. Because man can't live alone in a void and because he has to have a history, a present and a future, he/she reachs out to attach himself/herself to other humans having something in common with, other than being descendants from the Homo Sapiens species. 

(To be cont.)