خلخال

  "1" was written during one of the sessions with Ana El Hekaya workshop about writing the Revolution. It is scheduled to be performed along with other stories written in the workshop in a storytelling performance in Cairo some time soon. "1" was inspired by my work in Laila Soliman's No Time for Art 0, which is the first part of a series of performances about military and police violence. NTFA 0 is dedicated to the martyrs of the Revolution. "1" was born in a moment that brought together the blend between brutal facts and the gift of our imaginations.   1             Abanoub had decided not to attend his math lesson on January 25 to join the protests. He didn't see his sweetheart Eveline that day because of his decision; but he saw her on Thursday at the biology class. After they finished, they stood together in the street and then took a walk till they found a batata vendor. They stood eating the small g...

This is a translation of Kufuf   كفوف Kufuf was written during a writing workshop in July 2010 with Ana El Hekaya (I am the Story) writing stories for performance based on case studies of women who have suffered in child and marital courts for their rights and those of their children. It was performed in a storytelling performance held in November of the same year at the Oriental Hall and was directed by Caroleen Khalil. Kufuf  - Palms I carry your palms in mine. I carry them in the hands I took from you I carry them so your burden is lighter bags, suitcases and laundry baskets No hands can carry all that alone. That's why we get married, they say. Because no one can carry all this alone.  You're palms are still wrapped around everything. I carry your eyes in mine. My eyes which you gave me shaped like yours. I hold them in my eyes and I see a laugh in black and white, broken china, a star small and far away. Then I know that w...

Space Sweet rough sweat; the windows are shut and the glass panes are cold to the touch, a small stubborn sliver of a breeze passes through it to bring in a smell of everything in the street that smells like nothing at all, like air clean of anger, a smell that dissolves quickly in the scent hidden in the details of the warm skin feeling like a delicate rug and sitting so comfortably in a perfume so intimate that has escaped pores and rested in the coarse cracks in  the wood of the table and the delicate planes of the floor as cool shy feet with the smallest hint of dried skin at the heels crawl up to the quilt clumped with heat smelling of laundry and damp with the left over taste of sweet sour grape drops that fell accidently, like the taste in the lukewarm morning breath brushing up against hair that scratches and tickles, damp with the wine at the tips and smelling of autumn and tobacco, that- along with the tips of a chiffon curtain flowing with the tiny breeze and tast...

I seek you. I do not know whether I seek you out, but I seek you. Does this make sense? What is the difference then? To seek you out means from amongst a crowd.  But there are no crowds between us. Not really. It's just you and me. This is not a letter. This is a story I think, which would be easier to be told if I do not publish it under my name. I will tell it pseudonymously. But which name to use? Who am I as tell this story to paper? Should I just begin? My indecisiveness might give me away. If I do seek you out (amongst people as we've agreed) then I have sought you randomly. We have found these words between us by chance. I will begin randomly then. At any letter. T                     Tea. Trust. Tentative. Table. Tobacco. Today. Tomorrow. Talkies. I will let you choose a letter and I'll say the words. D Drama. Divine. Dinner. Drin...

                             Q. What to expect when you're not expecting?                 A. A mad desire to pull the brakes on time and change things. Tick Tock Tick Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone What will follow is the maddening rush of thoughts and memories – like you can't stop the tap from running: what I should’ve done, what I didn't do. I don't know how the hours passed – I can almost hear the clock over the TV going berserk in agony, and you pleading, no let this be 20 years from now, let it never come. Give me some time. The telephone was off. Prevent the dog from barking with the juicy bone.  Does Yoshi know? Did he lose weight because the visits stopped? I wonder sometimes if he had barked at the sudden restlessness beneath him, whether anyone heard him moan. Silence...

Rings To be gifted with such beauty, with such adoration. To be gifted with this love. I like to think of myself as a woman of  my word. Never go down without earrings. She said. It was not my word I have been breaking, it was hers. For two days now I have gone down without earrings. I never do. I was afraid my mommie would notice. My lack of adornment. If I walk quickly, she wouldn't notice what is missing between the curls. Alaa Abd El Fattah is still in jail, even though General Tantawy has declared that investigations into the massacre of Maspero at October 9 th 2o11 have been moved to Civil Prosecution. Alaa was the first who said it . We fear our mothers more than bullets. I am afraid and that is why I have not been wearing them. I fear the terror at the pit of mother's heart crawling up to blind her from anything else other than what she wants, that we stay with her, that we will not go "there". I lie. I break prom...

This is something that has come to me as a conclusion, a fact, a truth, call if what ever you wish but this is it: At Tahrir Square there is only Truth. There is no more space for doubting this and nothing angers me more than the people I meet randomly who are still questioning. So much has happened - so much beauty has come from Tahrir - that I feel we can no longer question it. Tahrir is a soul that is definitely divine and if you don't believe in divinity then it is the most beautiful of life that I have seen. What has been happening since Friday late night and the early hours of Saturday 19th of November is nothing but a betrayal to the Egyptian people, to all of them, those with the Revolution and those against it. The Supreme Council of Armed Forces (SCAF) is only continuing what Mubarak's regime has been doing for 30 years. The Ministry of Interior (MoI) has not changed its policy. For the past three days it has been killing the peaceful protesters and shooting...

مستمرين في الثورة رجعنا تاني للتحرير، عشان لسو وبرغم مرور 10 شهور على تنحي مبارك المجلس العسكري  والداخلية بيتعاملوا مع احتجاجاتنا بالدنطق نفسو، منطق العنف والسحل. بدل ما المجلس العسكري يحل مشاكل مصابيين الثورة ويوفر لذم العلاج المحترم، استخدم القوة  والأمن الدركزي لفض اعتصامهم السلمي، يعني مصابي الثورة يضربوهم بالرصاص والخرطوش في نفس  الوقت إللي مبارك والعادلي فيو بيتعالجوا على نفقة الدولة أحسن علاج وهما في سجونهم. في الحقيقة اللي بيحصل ده جزء من الثورة المضادة اللي بتتم بتدبير وتحريض وقيادة من المجلس  العسكري، فبعد ثورة قامت عشان الحرية ولقمة العيش، بقى واضح إن في مخطط لعقاب الشعب عشان  ماحدش يطالب بحقوا تاني؛  أداء الداخلية والأمن في القمع والتعذيب زي ما ىو زاد عليو حالة من الانفلات الأمني  المتعمد عشان الناس تحس بالفوضى ويبقى اللوم موجو باستمرار للثورة والثوار.  الاقتصاد لسو منحاز للأغنياء على حساب الفقرا، والأسعار مافيش نية لضبطها، يعني بدل  ما الثورة ترجع للناس حقوقها، الناس تزيد عليها الضغوط الاقتصادية ويحسوا إن الثورة جات...

The air conditioned office was shaking at a two seconds interval every time the old brown York air conditioner burped some cool air. Mubarak's picture was on the wall behind the desk. He looked like a teenager compared to the figure sitting in the dark chocolate brown leather armchair. The whole room was dressed in this shade which grotesquely matched the old York dripping water through an orange hose into a lime green bucket. Ghali lit a cigarette – Gauloises – and leaned forward while staring into the face hovering in midair between cap and collar. He opened his thin lips to say something but then changed his mind. No, he thought, asking for whisky is not a very smart move. He'd already said he didn’t want anything to drink. "Well, Mr. Ghali…" "Please General Fangary, there's no need for these formalities. You can call me Mr. Waguih." "Mr. Waguih" "I'm all ears General." "You do know why you're here" ...