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...