Where I come from, people are accustomed to
conforming to what the majority dictates,
rather than embracing their own interpretations.
Over there, it is embarrassing to get emotional
with a movie, and often will a cousin rise from
their chair saying that there’s something in
their eyes. Fathers don’t take their sons hunting
and grandmothers who are one hundred years
old go to the market by themselves to buy
vegetables for lunch. People where I come
from are proficient in the art of gossip.
The story about the Coptic shop owner who
died while drinking next to his cow had been
in thousands of mouths for years, as well as
that of the old woman who put a mixture of
prescription of drugs in her friend’s tea causing
the latter to walk out naked one day.
They agree that Hotel California is a song about
drugs and that there’s something dark about
that house in Port Fouad. Where I come from
everyone who says they’re fine are crying in
the bathroom and everyone who says they quit
smoking are stealing a cigarette in the balcony.
Siblings don’t exchange terms of endearment,
mothers don’t cook all days of the week and
alienated sons and daughters wake up in the
middle of the night to stare at the darkness
from which they’d come and to which they’ll go.