April 22nd 1979
16:00 Local Time Markaz Nasser , Bani Swaif , Egypt
A Black Western Sahara Scarab that’s managed to migrate eastwards to the Nile Valley was minding its own business in the middle of town. Seeking solace in the town's dirt paved roads. Its bold and slightly bluish black color provided contrast to the town’s regular hues of yellow and brown. You wouldn’t mistake it for litter, since the town wasn’t really that big on consumer consumption to actually litter. Everything in this town was either sold in brown paper bags or plastic ones. Some products came in no packaging at all. Its only been nine years since Nasser ( the namesake of this town and neighboring area) has passed away, and his successor’s historically infamous “open door policy” still remained in big mega cities spawning inhabitants surpassing 5 million such as Cairo and Alexandria.
Towns like Markaz Nasser still felt a lot like Nasser’s Egypt. They all thanked Nasser and his fellow comrades for the revolution not so long ago. For it gave the chance for people like Hag Abdel Dayem, the chance to dream, that their sons may have a life far better than they did.
That is why, Hag Abdel Dayem kept all his sons in school. Abdel Nasser’s dreams and efforts for education to all, will not go in vain.
That is why, Hag Abdel Dayem, took up a Miiry job at the Waste Water Authority in addition to his Iron workshop. He’d rather make the extra money his children normally would have made, than deprive them from what he longed for…
An Education.
Of all his sons, he favored Sayed. He was pretty stand up and took to responsibility well. Instead of playing football with his friends after school, he would help his father at the workshop. Any extra hours were spent over books under a lamppost, some of the books were in the curriculum, other were for his own mental expansion. The Hag, had no worries over Sayed, he didn’t even fear the influence of the Brotherhood, he knew that his son knew God well enough than to fall victim to the brand of God the Brotherhood were selling.
AbdelRahman his youngest, nicknamed Abood ( not a very original nickname) was the most he fretted over. Abood barely passed every school year and was always getting into trouble with other kids at school. Wasn’t very keen on studying the Koran. His excuse was that his tutor from the mosque always smelt like sweat.
Although Abood was quite young and the Hag knew, this is just childhood delinquency he was very keen on disciplining Abood, he always believed that a bad apple in the barrel makes the whole barrel go bad.
Abood was always passionate about one thing though. He’d never leave a car enter the markaz without running after it like a rabid dog. That past time of course, given his age has long since withered away.
Abood skipped school today, and went with a couple of friends behind the gas station, where they were sniffing thinner, in the midst of their hydrocarbon induced stupor, while one of his friends was puking his not so full guts out, Abood noticed a girl, probably his age in her stain dabbed garb that was once a rosy red, and your not so standard –yet commonly found- issued Zanooba flipflop , slapping against her heels with every stride. Fawzeyya, was balancing a huge aluminum pot over her head with a rag covering the lid. He could smell Molokheyya.
ممكن ملخية؟
إختشي ياض عيب
You know where this conversation went, I’ll give you a hint, one of them was not happy about it.
Abood was too high to notice the blood on his pants. His mother wasn’t.
To avoid scandal, Abood was shipped off to Port Said to work with his Maternal Uncle in trucking.
December 6th 1990
22:45 Local Time – Portsaid Free Zone
Abood, now known as “Abdo el Dayem” sat with fellow truckers on a local ahwa overlooking the canal. They were playing backgammon and smoking shisha. One of them had Hashish in his, the rest refrained from joining today, since some of them were due on night drives, and as for the others…well let’s just say, they didn’t want to make a daily habit out of it, for financial reasons.
Abdo el Dayem thought about home sometimes, but selectively drowned out those thoughts. He felt guilt but wouldn’t identify with it. He wasn’t there when Fawzeyya’s family barged into their house, and demanded retribution.
Hag Abdel Dayem, always an honorable man, who always displayed accountability for once had to be a coward, He loved Abood too much to hand him over to the wrath of the Men in Fawzeyya’s family. He then claimed that Abood ran away, and knows nothing of his whereabouts. The Hag had to calm them down.
Seeing that his older son Sayed was the example of the good son, Fawzeyya’s family were willing to let it all go , if Fawzeyya and Sayed be wed.
Although it was very unorthodox to reach such an agreement, in some circles considered incestuous, both parties were blinded by interest. Abdel Dayem blinded by fear from scandal, and Fawzeyya’s family seeking an opportunity out of mishap.
It seemed like the right thing to do.
Abdo el Dayem didn’t know of this until years later, when things cooled down, and was visited impromptu by Sayed himself. Abdo’s Subconscious, clouded his supposed guilt and cloaked it as rage. Rage for defying God, and how dare his brother not only approve of, but participate in such vile practice, it offended him to the extent he ended the visit quite abruptly with an outburst of all the damnations and cuss words he knew. That was five years ago. And he never saw or heard of his family since. Now almost a veteran in trucking out of Port Said, he’s started a hidden career of smuggling, out of the free zone with some colleagues. It was mostly legitimate merchandise, that evaded customs thanks to Abdo. Some smugglers would actually wear the merchandise out of the free zone. But that would take them days or weeks. Abdo merely had a hidden compartment that held close to 600 Articles of clothing if folded properly. He would have them out in two hours.
As he was planning his big break, and his debut in the Port Said smuggling underworld, little did he know that plans he wouldn’t be happy about were brewing elsewhere.
In a world of dog eat dog, where people know no loyalties but to their own well being, earlier that morning a colleague was being held captive at the Free Zone Police Station. Who in order to save his own skin, told them of Abdo’s intentions.
The fellow trucker nestling a “goozah” loaded with Hashish from el Aarish knew of it, but wanted Abdo to fall into the trap, one less competitor out of the way was always a good chance. Although the sense of camaraderie was quite apparent in this bunch as in similar bunches, one always saved his skin, and went by the saying: “ I love you but never more than I love myself”
As Abdo started the road to make his delivery, he looked to blister pack of pills laying on the dashboard. He contemplated wether he would want to entertain his drive by drug induced euphoria, at the expense of “Baraka” on what might be a perilous yet routine journey. After not that much contemplation he decided what the heck, it’s a long drive, he could use the fun.
He popped his usual dose of half the strip, and slipped a tape of Mahmoud el Husseiny into the almost defunct cassette player nestled to the right of the steering wheel.
كوكا كوكا كوكا.....كوكا كوكا كوكا....جوجوجوجوجوجوجوووووو!
The incomprehensible scat of sha3bi music would actually make Louie Armstrong and Louie Reed and all the other Louies and cool cats of the blues –dead or alive – toss and turn in their beds or graves alike.
Tasteless, so tasteless…its enjoyable. Some fans of El Hussieny actually argue that hes actually saying “Kokkak Kokkak Kokkak”, rather than “Kooka Kooka Kooka” which colloquially would mean “Your Cocaine” repeatedly.
Opponents to the claim merely say, this guy caters to an audience that can’t afford to even see a gram of Cocaine, so its impossible that he would actually be referring to “Keif el Melook” as Cocaine is known in these circles. But when you come to think of it, most hip hop stars sing of a lifestyle strictly privy to the ambitions of their audience and never truly realized in real life.
Speaking of Cocaine would fast forward us nineteen years into the story, where Abdo has relocated to Cairo, went into the cocaine business with the hefty profits he made off clothes smuggling out of the free zone, fell into deep beef with the “Batneyya” Dealers who retail the drug in Cairo and had to lay low in order to stay alive, and has been working as a “Mallaki” Driver for six months on a model 2001 BMW 520i for some Consulting Engineer.
He can’t really say the job is a step back, its good legitimate pay, and he practically does nothing but lounge in the driver’s seat all day. When it gets too boring he smokes up a pre rolled joint of Hashish. Of course it is nothing like the glory days of the past, when he was el Me3alem 3abdo, and had an army of minions ready to kill for El Me3alem, but still, at least he gets to stay alive.
October 18th 2009
08:45 am
6th October Bridge – Heliopolis Direction – after suspended extension
Driving to “ana shareb segara bonni” Abdo takes a steep turn with the BMW at a viciously dangerous speed. Very simply put, he is of a school of driving that believes high speed maneuvering is the only indicator of a driver’s skill. Nothing else. Up ahead a 2006 Honda City is trying to slowly overtake a microbus hogging the right lane. Although like any place in most of the world, Cairo reserves the right lane for slow speed drivers, where overtaking should be done from a driver’s left. However in Abdo’s school of driving ( which, mind you is adopted by a lot of frustrated drivers) the Right lane is always seen as an opportunity for speeding. This opinion has been formulated out of consistent traffic occupying the left lane where slow drivers occupy the left lane out of choice and congest traffic coming from behind.
Abdo made a premature judgment call and assumed the Honda City wont overtake, and just cruise in parallel to the microbus, causing a mandatory cruise control if you may call it such for the rest of rear-coming traffic. Abdo, being the impatient “Faloosa” he is, saw a literally very narrow opportunity to pass from the microbus’s right, which in order to take, would compel the microbus to violently veer to the left, where the Honda City would follow suit.
At the same time, the Honda driver was planning to occupy the same space on the bridge that Abdo was planning on occupying after his near deadly maneuver, and I am sure you know that the laws of physics on planet earth cannot allow to different bodies to occupy the same space, in layman’s terms..a car crash was inevitable.
Once both Abdo and the Honda Driver simultaneously discovered the others intentions… 2 seconds of Absolute Chaos erupted on the eternally congested bridge.
It was the type of chaos that makes one’s life flash before one’s eyes, as if it were a final review of one’s life. It’s a moment of evaluation that transcends what we understand as time. Although it is not a comprehensive flash, meaning that one’s entire life does not flash before one’s eyes, rather than the most significant events that led the life to take the route it eventually took. Of course the editing of these images is very subjective and done by one’s current state of mind and what that current state of mind sees as relevant or important. That current state of mind, being in the director’s chair directing your perception of things, ultimately has full control of the entire display with what it may entail of image quality and speed, color shades, tints and of course accompanying soundtrack and/or musical score. What also makes it all the more interesting is how the director might indulge in continuity errors such as playing a piece of music as soundtrack to a specific memory that was actually composed after that event took place *think Techno Music playing to a battle in WWI*
In elaboration to that, it is likely that a content man going through this ordeal ( the ordeal being the realization that he is about die) see the positive significant events of his life *snapshot of content man getting married, followed by one of buying new house, and a series of other pleasant events of significant sentimental value including but not necessarily limited to daughter graduating, a day at the beach with the family, a memorable childhood moment with a now dead parent all displayed slowly with fluid and fluff sequence motion with Louie Armstrong’s “ what a wonderful world” in the background, …you get the drift, don’t you?*
I am also confident that you can already assume that Abdo is not exactly a man content with what he has done with his life, and hence the timeless film reel of events his state of mind showed him was more foreboding and tormenting than that of your content man displayed above.
Something more like the story of his life portrayed above, with all the regrets and fuck ups he had to endure as a result of following his whims and indulgence in Hedonism.
So let’s just pause the image of the crash for a minute…just one Femto Second before impact…and then allow it to reverse at 48 frames per second, *enter divine miracle, that downplays event from Demise to Near Death Experience Status*
Was the torment caused by watching a “bad” life flash before your eyes intense enough to have you repent your ways if you were given a second chance on life? Or would such repenting be short lived, for like a day or two… will you even remember this near death experience tomorrow? At five O clock today when boss sends you for some other random errand?
I mean, there’s always the option of downgrading the event to “ Not Deadly But Permanently Incapacitating” Where you lose a limb or two, maybe even permanent disfigurement…maybe that would remind Abdo from this day forward that any minute after the crash is a blessing that he should invest appropriately. That seems fair. But who am I to decide..that’s Fate’s Job.. In other words…God’s Will.
It was God’s Will that the crash was never to occur, *insert moans of objection by carnage lovers* and that both Abdo and the Honda driver escape this event unscathed…both of them living to die another day…barely remembering it days later…
This is up here for one of the event participants to remember,
Always remember…
16:00 Local Time Markaz Nasser , Bani Swaif , Egypt
A Black Western Sahara Scarab that’s managed to migrate eastwards to the Nile Valley was minding its own business in the middle of town. Seeking solace in the town's dirt paved roads. Its bold and slightly bluish black color provided contrast to the town’s regular hues of yellow and brown. You wouldn’t mistake it for litter, since the town wasn’t really that big on consumer consumption to actually litter. Everything in this town was either sold in brown paper bags or plastic ones. Some products came in no packaging at all. Its only been nine years since Nasser ( the namesake of this town and neighboring area) has passed away, and his successor’s historically infamous “open door policy” still remained in big mega cities spawning inhabitants surpassing 5 million such as Cairo and Alexandria.
Towns like Markaz Nasser still felt a lot like Nasser’s Egypt. They all thanked Nasser and his fellow comrades for the revolution not so long ago. For it gave the chance for people like Hag Abdel Dayem, the chance to dream, that their sons may have a life far better than they did.
That is why, Hag Abdel Dayem kept all his sons in school. Abdel Nasser’s dreams and efforts for education to all, will not go in vain.
That is why, Hag Abdel Dayem, took up a Miiry job at the Waste Water Authority in addition to his Iron workshop. He’d rather make the extra money his children normally would have made, than deprive them from what he longed for…
An Education.
Of all his sons, he favored Sayed. He was pretty stand up and took to responsibility well. Instead of playing football with his friends after school, he would help his father at the workshop. Any extra hours were spent over books under a lamppost, some of the books were in the curriculum, other were for his own mental expansion. The Hag, had no worries over Sayed, he didn’t even fear the influence of the Brotherhood, he knew that his son knew God well enough than to fall victim to the brand of God the Brotherhood were selling.
AbdelRahman his youngest, nicknamed Abood ( not a very original nickname) was the most he fretted over. Abood barely passed every school year and was always getting into trouble with other kids at school. Wasn’t very keen on studying the Koran. His excuse was that his tutor from the mosque always smelt like sweat.
Although Abood was quite young and the Hag knew, this is just childhood delinquency he was very keen on disciplining Abood, he always believed that a bad apple in the barrel makes the whole barrel go bad.
Abood was always passionate about one thing though. He’d never leave a car enter the markaz without running after it like a rabid dog. That past time of course, given his age has long since withered away.
Abood skipped school today, and went with a couple of friends behind the gas station, where they were sniffing thinner, in the midst of their hydrocarbon induced stupor, while one of his friends was puking his not so full guts out, Abood noticed a girl, probably his age in her stain dabbed garb that was once a rosy red, and your not so standard –yet commonly found- issued Zanooba flipflop , slapping against her heels with every stride. Fawzeyya, was balancing a huge aluminum pot over her head with a rag covering the lid. He could smell Molokheyya.
ممكن ملخية؟
إختشي ياض عيب
You know where this conversation went, I’ll give you a hint, one of them was not happy about it.
Abood was too high to notice the blood on his pants. His mother wasn’t.
To avoid scandal, Abood was shipped off to Port Said to work with his Maternal Uncle in trucking.
December 6th 1990
22:45 Local Time – Portsaid Free Zone
Abood, now known as “Abdo el Dayem” sat with fellow truckers on a local ahwa overlooking the canal. They were playing backgammon and smoking shisha. One of them had Hashish in his, the rest refrained from joining today, since some of them were due on night drives, and as for the others…well let’s just say, they didn’t want to make a daily habit out of it, for financial reasons.
Abdo el Dayem thought about home sometimes, but selectively drowned out those thoughts. He felt guilt but wouldn’t identify with it. He wasn’t there when Fawzeyya’s family barged into their house, and demanded retribution.
Hag Abdel Dayem, always an honorable man, who always displayed accountability for once had to be a coward, He loved Abood too much to hand him over to the wrath of the Men in Fawzeyya’s family. He then claimed that Abood ran away, and knows nothing of his whereabouts. The Hag had to calm them down.
Seeing that his older son Sayed was the example of the good son, Fawzeyya’s family were willing to let it all go , if Fawzeyya and Sayed be wed.
Although it was very unorthodox to reach such an agreement, in some circles considered incestuous, both parties were blinded by interest. Abdel Dayem blinded by fear from scandal, and Fawzeyya’s family seeking an opportunity out of mishap.
It seemed like the right thing to do.
Abdo el Dayem didn’t know of this until years later, when things cooled down, and was visited impromptu by Sayed himself. Abdo’s Subconscious, clouded his supposed guilt and cloaked it as rage. Rage for defying God, and how dare his brother not only approve of, but participate in such vile practice, it offended him to the extent he ended the visit quite abruptly with an outburst of all the damnations and cuss words he knew. That was five years ago. And he never saw or heard of his family since. Now almost a veteran in trucking out of Port Said, he’s started a hidden career of smuggling, out of the free zone with some colleagues. It was mostly legitimate merchandise, that evaded customs thanks to Abdo. Some smugglers would actually wear the merchandise out of the free zone. But that would take them days or weeks. Abdo merely had a hidden compartment that held close to 600 Articles of clothing if folded properly. He would have them out in two hours.
As he was planning his big break, and his debut in the Port Said smuggling underworld, little did he know that plans he wouldn’t be happy about were brewing elsewhere.
In a world of dog eat dog, where people know no loyalties but to their own well being, earlier that morning a colleague was being held captive at the Free Zone Police Station. Who in order to save his own skin, told them of Abdo’s intentions.
The fellow trucker nestling a “goozah” loaded with Hashish from el Aarish knew of it, but wanted Abdo to fall into the trap, one less competitor out of the way was always a good chance. Although the sense of camaraderie was quite apparent in this bunch as in similar bunches, one always saved his skin, and went by the saying: “ I love you but never more than I love myself”
As Abdo started the road to make his delivery, he looked to blister pack of pills laying on the dashboard. He contemplated wether he would want to entertain his drive by drug induced euphoria, at the expense of “Baraka” on what might be a perilous yet routine journey. After not that much contemplation he decided what the heck, it’s a long drive, he could use the fun.
He popped his usual dose of half the strip, and slipped a tape of Mahmoud el Husseiny into the almost defunct cassette player nestled to the right of the steering wheel.
كوكا كوكا كوكا.....كوكا كوكا كوكا....جوجوجوجوجوجوجوووووو!
The incomprehensible scat of sha3bi music would actually make Louie Armstrong and Louie Reed and all the other Louies and cool cats of the blues –dead or alive – toss and turn in their beds or graves alike.
Tasteless, so tasteless…its enjoyable. Some fans of El Hussieny actually argue that hes actually saying “Kokkak Kokkak Kokkak”, rather than “Kooka Kooka Kooka” which colloquially would mean “Your Cocaine” repeatedly.
Opponents to the claim merely say, this guy caters to an audience that can’t afford to even see a gram of Cocaine, so its impossible that he would actually be referring to “Keif el Melook” as Cocaine is known in these circles. But when you come to think of it, most hip hop stars sing of a lifestyle strictly privy to the ambitions of their audience and never truly realized in real life.
Speaking of Cocaine would fast forward us nineteen years into the story, where Abdo has relocated to Cairo, went into the cocaine business with the hefty profits he made off clothes smuggling out of the free zone, fell into deep beef with the “Batneyya” Dealers who retail the drug in Cairo and had to lay low in order to stay alive, and has been working as a “Mallaki” Driver for six months on a model 2001 BMW 520i for some Consulting Engineer.
He can’t really say the job is a step back, its good legitimate pay, and he practically does nothing but lounge in the driver’s seat all day. When it gets too boring he smokes up a pre rolled joint of Hashish. Of course it is nothing like the glory days of the past, when he was el Me3alem 3abdo, and had an army of minions ready to kill for El Me3alem, but still, at least he gets to stay alive.
October 18th 2009
08:45 am
6th October Bridge – Heliopolis Direction – after suspended extension
Driving to “ana shareb segara bonni” Abdo takes a steep turn with the BMW at a viciously dangerous speed. Very simply put, he is of a school of driving that believes high speed maneuvering is the only indicator of a driver’s skill. Nothing else. Up ahead a 2006 Honda City is trying to slowly overtake a microbus hogging the right lane. Although like any place in most of the world, Cairo reserves the right lane for slow speed drivers, where overtaking should be done from a driver’s left. However in Abdo’s school of driving ( which, mind you is adopted by a lot of frustrated drivers) the Right lane is always seen as an opportunity for speeding. This opinion has been formulated out of consistent traffic occupying the left lane where slow drivers occupy the left lane out of choice and congest traffic coming from behind.
Abdo made a premature judgment call and assumed the Honda City wont overtake, and just cruise in parallel to the microbus, causing a mandatory cruise control if you may call it such for the rest of rear-coming traffic. Abdo, being the impatient “Faloosa” he is, saw a literally very narrow opportunity to pass from the microbus’s right, which in order to take, would compel the microbus to violently veer to the left, where the Honda City would follow suit.
At the same time, the Honda driver was planning to occupy the same space on the bridge that Abdo was planning on occupying after his near deadly maneuver, and I am sure you know that the laws of physics on planet earth cannot allow to different bodies to occupy the same space, in layman’s terms..a car crash was inevitable.
Once both Abdo and the Honda Driver simultaneously discovered the others intentions… 2 seconds of Absolute Chaos erupted on the eternally congested bridge.
It was the type of chaos that makes one’s life flash before one’s eyes, as if it were a final review of one’s life. It’s a moment of evaluation that transcends what we understand as time. Although it is not a comprehensive flash, meaning that one’s entire life does not flash before one’s eyes, rather than the most significant events that led the life to take the route it eventually took. Of course the editing of these images is very subjective and done by one’s current state of mind and what that current state of mind sees as relevant or important. That current state of mind, being in the director’s chair directing your perception of things, ultimately has full control of the entire display with what it may entail of image quality and speed, color shades, tints and of course accompanying soundtrack and/or musical score. What also makes it all the more interesting is how the director might indulge in continuity errors such as playing a piece of music as soundtrack to a specific memory that was actually composed after that event took place *think Techno Music playing to a battle in WWI*
In elaboration to that, it is likely that a content man going through this ordeal ( the ordeal being the realization that he is about die) see the positive significant events of his life *snapshot of content man getting married, followed by one of buying new house, and a series of other pleasant events of significant sentimental value including but not necessarily limited to daughter graduating, a day at the beach with the family, a memorable childhood moment with a now dead parent all displayed slowly with fluid and fluff sequence motion with Louie Armstrong’s “ what a wonderful world” in the background, …you get the drift, don’t you?*
I am also confident that you can already assume that Abdo is not exactly a man content with what he has done with his life, and hence the timeless film reel of events his state of mind showed him was more foreboding and tormenting than that of your content man displayed above.
Something more like the story of his life portrayed above, with all the regrets and fuck ups he had to endure as a result of following his whims and indulgence in Hedonism.
So let’s just pause the image of the crash for a minute…just one Femto Second before impact…and then allow it to reverse at 48 frames per second, *enter divine miracle, that downplays event from Demise to Near Death Experience Status*
Was the torment caused by watching a “bad” life flash before your eyes intense enough to have you repent your ways if you were given a second chance on life? Or would such repenting be short lived, for like a day or two… will you even remember this near death experience tomorrow? At five O clock today when boss sends you for some other random errand?
I mean, there’s always the option of downgrading the event to “ Not Deadly But Permanently Incapacitating” Where you lose a limb or two, maybe even permanent disfigurement…maybe that would remind Abdo from this day forward that any minute after the crash is a blessing that he should invest appropriately. That seems fair. But who am I to decide..that’s Fate’s Job.. In other words…God’s Will.
It was God’s Will that the crash was never to occur, *insert moans of objection by carnage lovers* and that both Abdo and the Honda driver escape this event unscathed…both of them living to die another day…barely remembering it days later…
This is up here for one of the event participants to remember,
Always remember…
1 comment:
That's a sad story. Very very good, but sad.
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