Red Room Where the Writers Are

the first time i sit in the passenger seat, and with no stress in the house, on a trip back to the city of Cairo. i was missing a lot in the back seat, and now i know why a front-sitter rarely sleeps..

i had to talk to my sister a few times, we were a bit nervous lest we get lost in her first drive between cities.. else, i was silent... i only had to watch road sides..

i didn't mind seeing those different-sized tyres tied together looking like tens of mickey mouses along the extending curb, the cheapest option for a humble mechanic to advertise his garage a kilometer away... and there was the sign reading "slow down- residential area" on a highway... residential area... a few huts and simple brick houses among trees and small planted areas.. two girls in galabayyas carrying utensils, loitering and talking while speedy cars rushed beside them...

after crossing the "residential area", green fields started showing.. meticulously divided.. corn fields.. i told my sisiter: they say the maize yield this year was poor... who told u, she asked... the charcoal corn griller near grandma's, a tall, dark man from Upper Egypt, his corn is very good...

the corn fields looked ok, i thought... i shushed my ignorant self into silence and continued gazing through the window... i saw a huge field of palm trees, date palms, the dates were ripe and heavily drooping on both sides of the trees, good, i thought, time for dates then.. dates form a universe on their own, a God's miracle, they are.. incredible diversity.. but i never liked palm trees that much, they look quite dead compared to other trees...

yes, i had thoughts, lots of thoughts whirling and punching and hammering.. but they were almost all gone.. that's when we came across sunflower fields... sunflower! there is something between me and flowers, i admit, but sunflowers, i believe we have an affair... something complicated.. maybe i had been a sunflower and was reincarnated as a human being... or a sunflower bee, makes more sense...

my eyes and soul abandoned me and wandered -under a spell- among the sunflowers, i guess i was day dreaming, that i danced and sang with the huge flowers, like Alice in Wonderland.. it was all too magical, but of course, it is always as short as time can ever be...

looking at green fields and still waltzing with sunflower in my mind, a third process was going on.. i am NOT enjoying this though i know i should... and it irritated me--- really, how my days resemble this trip.. always feeling that i am on the run trying to reach a virtual, hypothetical aim that i am never certain i would ever reach, either because there is something wrong in its construction or because my life is not long enough... i hate how i never dare to stand by and take a close look at things and exchange energies... i hate how i take a glimpse  and then work on the hazing image in my imagination, i hate my imaginations... i don't want to be the deluded Alice! i want to be able to smell the grassy-smelling sunflower, i want to be able to only think sunflower when i want to...

we passed the sunflowers.. we had to drive into strange separate fogs several times.. i assumed maybe the fields near by needed more irrigation than others and infused this fog on the road... it was early morning anyways..

i saw some huts and working farmers - i happen to envy them sometimes, but then take it back when i think matter-of-factly- and then i saw a barking dog chasing a straying goat, that was funny, it sets the child in me excited, it was the first time i see this in real, and i wondered what is the fox in such a place...

Cairo getting closer, the fields were gone and personal possessions showed.. suddenly all thes ornamented gates and fences and decorated  plants seemed so silly.. my eyes finally drew back inside the car.. we crossed the governorate gates... i sighed, munched silently into a pear while Cairo Local Radio played in my ears...