Category Archives: Stories

Sep 14 2011
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Best blog posts, Stories

The Mosquito Lay Dead In My Cup

It’s all too true

(after preliminary words, the trial begins)

“I will tell the whole truth, not part of it, and nothing else besides it, truth.”

Prosecutor: Where were you and what were you doing on the night of September 13, 2011?

Arabic student: It’s hard to say exactly….yesterday seems so long ago. I think I was at home, probably working on the balcony or something like that.

Prosecutor: What do you mean by working? Were you doing your “Arabic homework?” Is that right?

Arabic student: Well, yes…..when I come home from classes sometimes I take a nap but then usually I go outside and do homework and watch the bats flap around the tree that encroaches upon…

Prosecutor: That’s quite enough! So you were doing homework. Was there anything unusual about that night?

Arabic student: No, I don’t think so….I think I remember being stressed out by how much homework I had. I was wearing a tank top I hadn’t worn in a while. Oh! I ate a big shwarma sandwich earlier that day, so I wasn’t really hungry for dinner since I hadn’t been eating meat that much and…

Prosecutor: SILENCE! QUIT YOUR BABBLING!  You say you weren’t hungry, but were there any other physical needs you were satisfying by partaking of certain elements?

Arabic student: Excuse me?

Prosecutor: WERE YOU THIRSTY? For goodness sake, is this so difficult? Were you thirsty? Go on and answer the question. Am I talking to myself here? Am I speaking English? Does my cravat frighten you? ANSWER THE QUESTION!

Arabic student: Okay, okay! No I wasn’t thirsty. I’m never thirsty at home because I always drink water out of a big blue cup covered in stylized fish.

Prosecutor: Ah ha! A big, blue, cup covered in stylized fish you say….about how many ounces do you think this cup of yours is?

Arabic student: probably about 32 ounces

Prosecutor: Monstrously large! And you mentioned you drink water, is that right? May I inquire as to the origin of this water?

Arabic student: Yeah I drink water since I think drinking juice is just like munching on sugar cubes and besides that it’s more…

Prosecutor: I will hold you in CONTEMPT! Answer my question! Where do you get this water from?!?

Arabic student: Okay, geez! I get it from the tap. I hate having to pay for bottled water.

Prosecutor: Disgusting! Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, please note the complete lack of taste the defendant has shown by drinking bleach-flavored tap water from a hillbilly’s water pail. Arabic student, as you drank, did you notice anything different about this obscene cup of yours?

Arabic student: Well, the water wasn’t as cold as usual since I had forgotten to refill the plastic water bottle I fill with tap water and keep in the fridge and so I had to drink warm water straight from the tap.

Prosecutor: No you baboon! Don’t waste my time with water temperature! Did you notice any other changes!

Arabic student: Now that you press the subject, I do remember seeing a dead mosquito on the side of my cup that night.

Prosecutor: Ha! Now just so the jury can be clear on how repulsive this is, could you please describe for us the precise location of the mosquito and approximately how long it had been there?

Arabic student: It was on the inside of the cup, near the water level and I have no idea when it got there.

Prosecutor: How ghastly! You mean to say there’s a substantial chance you had been drinking mosquito seepage for a significant amount of time?

Arabic student: Well…yes.

Prosecutor: And what did you do after you noticed the mosquito’s rotting corpse in your giant cup, as a human being generally concerned with hygiene?

Arabic student: Well my first thought was that I had to get it out, obviously, and so I stuck my finger in there and took it out but then I thought it would be cool to get a picture of it, since it was kind of funny.

Prosecutor: So, as a graduate from a university, what did you do then?

Arabic student: Well I put it back in the cup and took a picture of it.

Prosecutor: Utterly vile! My dearest jury members, may we be certain of the fact that this here Arabic student willingly replaced the deceased, disease infested mosquito, back into her dirty cup for the sole purpose of capturing it on film.  And then, you surely removed it after that, right?

Arabic student: Well…no. I didn’t want to go wash the cup and so I just made a note of where the mosquito was and tried to avoid drinking from that spot.

Prosecutor: I’ve never heard anything more abhorrent! Clearly you’ve reached a new level of baseness only known to a class of human beings that completely rejects any semblance of propriety or civilization. If I understand you correctly, and I pray that I don’t, you not only continued drinking from the cup, but you didn’t even remove the mosquito.

Arabic student: Yes that is correct.

Prosecutor: When, if ever, did you undertake the removal of said mosquito and sanitation of the big, blue, cup?

Arabic student: Umm….

Prosecutor: TELL ME WHERE THE MOSQUITO IS! WHERE IS IT!

Arabic student: You see, that night was I really busy and stressed out about homework, so I….

Prosecutor: ANSWER ME!

Arabic student: I DIDN’T TAKE IT OUT, OKAY! IT’S STILL THERE! IT’S STILL THERE…. (breaking into sobs) I was going to do it eventually, but then I just got sidetracked….I…I….I don’t know what to say.

Prosecutor: A good place to start would be apologizing for the pathetic example of a human being you’ve become. Not only have you shamed you and your fellowship program, but you have shamed your parents, cousins, and roommates, both former and future.

Ladies and gentlemen, I submit to the jury the 32 oz. blue, plastic cup covered in stylized fish. If you’ll notice—and please try to hold in whatever vomit tests the strength of your lips—the mosquito is still there, part of it stuck to its original location, and part of it where the  Arabic student willingly replaced it. May you swiftly convict the defendant of all she is charged with so that justice may be dealt swiftly. I rest my case.

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Sep 06 2011
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Fiction, Humorous, Stories, Three minute read

CASA Fellow Struggles with Class, Surprises No One

Danger to herself and others

Cairo (Reuters) –  Monday, September 5, 2011

Today another CASA fellow reacted poorly to the beginning of the fall semester.  Anonymous sources had suggested that this student lacked the rigorous level of personal commitment and self control that the program’s recommencement demanded. Throughout the course of the day, all of these suspicions were proved completely true.

At around 8:36 pm on Sunday, September 4th, the student was quoted as saying “I should really try to get to bed early tonight since I want to get up at 5:00 tomorrow morning,” chuckles emanating from her dinner guests, two of which were imaginary.

Later that evening at 12:03 am, September 5th, 2011, she reportedly stated “It’s already 12! I really need to get to bed soon.” As one of her roommates said in a later interview, “She made all these kinds of statements, what about getting up early and stuff, but I think when push came to shove, she didn’t really think she would have classes on Monday, September 5th, and she certainly couldn’t recognize the implications of those classes.”

Her inability to appreciate the reality of classes became especially apparent later on when a hand scrawled note was discovered in the toaster at her apartment. At first glance, the note appeared to be a schedule, which would initially indicate a modicum of order and progress in the student’s life. However, upon closer examination our experts found it to be a rudimentary journal of the student’s thoughts throughout the day. It read:

8:45 am: In class. Everything written in Arabic. Do they think we can actually read this? [Since said student had studied Arabic for 5 years prior to this statement, it can be concluded that she was already delirious.]

10:23 am: So hungry. Who am I? Where did these bats come from? [Further investigation indicates that by bats the student was referring to the black specs she saw swimming in her eyes, a common sign of both sleep deprivation and mad Arabic student disease.]

12:48 pm: Class just started. Very tired. Only 20 days until December [This, of course, is completely false, the meaningless production of a crazed mind.]

1:38 pm: So close to being free. Why is everyone staring at me? STOP STARING AT ME! [Recorded statements of students in her class indicate that these thoughts were vocalized verbally and with no sign she was aware of her own screaming.]

The rest of the note was lost, since it was found in a toaster, but scientists and eyewitnesses have pieced together a few rough details of what transpired the rest of the day. According to blind speculation on the part of her roommate, the student consumed no less than two sandwiches, belted out show tunes to herself within full earshot of passersby on the way home, wandered around aimlessly in a book store, and took a one hour nap.

Upon awaking, she commenced with her homework at once with an unhealthy amount of concentration before staying up again until 3:30 am, having learned nothing from the day before. If you have seen this student, please slap her firmly on both sides of the face and tell her to go to bed earlier. She, the program director, and the world will thank you for your service.

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Jul 26 2011
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Serious-ish, Stories, Three minute read

Dear Diary: I flew today

Dear Diary,

I found myself somewhere new today. It was in Cairo I think, since everyone there still spoke Arabic and no one was wearing shorts or kissing in the street. I also saw some young men holding hands, another indication I was in the Middle East.

We entered what someone said was an old house but I think it was actually a castle since it was big and musty and had a windy staircase with uneven steps. There were a lot of locked doors too, as well as nooks and crannies, so it was definitely a castle.

The big feasting hall/courtyard was filled with chairs and dim light, and at the front was a kind of wooden plateau that was smaller than natural plateaus. There weren’t any chairs on the wooden plateau, probably because it is well known that wood does not go well with wood.

I gathered we were supposed to sit down, but it was hard to find a place because of all the chairs. Someone then thought it would be a good idea to sit on the chairs themselves so that’s what we did. I had a bad feeling about this idea, and was especially nervous since the guy in front of us kept peering behind him out of the corner of his eye. Every single time he saw us, he was surprised that there were people sitting on the chairs, despite his own chair sitting hypocrisy. I suggested that we move somewhere out of the way of the chairs but no one listened to me.

All of the sudden, the lights in the courtyard dimmed and music began from the front of the room, where the plateau was still lit up. Something had definitely gone wrong…how were we supposed to be able to see and talk to each other through the darkness over the music? Were we in a no-holds-barred modern protestant church service? But then musicians wearing white and carrying drums took the plateau (possibly the ghosts of the castle musicians) and I lost all consciousness of time and space.

The next thing I knew, I was smiling as we were exiting the building, the faint din of clapping still ringing in my ear. To my great surprise, I found I was carrying my camera and that the button on it was still warm. I turned it on to gather clues as to what had transpired and found I had taken tons of horrible pictures and videos of what may have been beautiful things. The ghosts on the stage had twirled and played the drums, floating and rocking back and forth, and then others took the stage that wore fantastic costumes of all colors, the most important part of it being a Christmas tree skirt that flew straight out from the dancers’ waists. And the dancers became a swirling mass of colors that was always striving upwards with their hands and with their bodies. It’s not clear why…maybe they were trying to communicate with a higher being, and that being was someone who lived upstairs that loved jazzercise in the mornings and they were politely pleading with them to stop.

If the quality of the video had been just a little better, maybe I would be able to remember what I felt when I was watching the dancers twirl and twirl and twirl, their faces bordering on rapture but still conscious of the audience, the movement of their skirts mesmerizing every eye. But I can’t, so from what I can gather, blobs took the plateau and bounced across it in a rhythmic but imprecise manner. Though it sounds unlikely, apparently this was what we expected since everyone was happy afterwards.

I was getting into a taxi when I remembered something and shut the door instead. I stepped away and started spinning around gradually faster until I slowly became airborne, the exhaust fumes from the traffic on the highway pushing me higher and higher. I called down, “Smell you later!” as the polluted air pushed me home.  It had only the faintest traces of teargas.

By the way, this was at a Tanoura performance, the Egyptian version of a dervish dance/ritual that is closely associated with Sufism, or mystical Islam. Sufism focuses on seeing the face of God or achieving unity with God.

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Jun 09 2011
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Egypt, Stories, Two minute read

The backpackers and the hag

We are in weekend now! The Egyptian weekend (and the weekend in other parts of the Islamic world) is on Friday and Saturday since church on Sunday isn’t so popular. Tonight I’m going to an electronic music festival, so no doubt there will be a post about that: I imagine glow in the dark hijabs.

When I was walking back to my apartment today after class and our “cultural exchange”, I  witnessed an interesting scene upon entering my street from the main square.

As soon as you turn left from Medan Messaha (or Messaha Square in English) there is a little kiosk and a flower shop, or rather, a flower kiosk. This kiosk by all accounts appears to be open 24 hours, and with good reason since many love emergencies happen in the wee hours of the morning or the late hours of the night. As I was passing by the flower shop, I saw three backpackers, probably European. They all had a very “natural” look and were laden with ridiculously huge backpacks, making them even more conspicuous than their mere colonizer-ish appearance. They were talking to a woman seated on a stool resting against the wall of the flower kiosk, and I swear this woman popped right out of a fairy tale. I know that she must be a lovely lady with a beautiful family and precious children, but she had the exact appearance of the hag that tricks Snow White into eating the poisoned apple, except for she was about three times as heavy and was wearing an abaya not a cloak. I wished to join their party just as an observer of the strange scene taking place: three clueless foreigners taking up with the ilk of the flower shop folk, but I walked on. I have a feeling the backpackers had left a trail of breadcrumbs or something of the sort. Probably as soon as I left, she fed them poisoned hibiscus flower tea and then stole their kidneys. Or took them to her house and fed them to be nice with the added benefit of fattening them up.

As I passed, I felt somewhat superior since, having lived here all of less than two weeks, I am obviously much better attuned to life here and almost fluent in the language and knowledgeable of every Egyptian custom. My confidence was brought down to size quickly, however, when on the way up the stairs to my apartment I almost went insane when a cat scratching its way down the stairwell came close to clawing my legs as it rushed past me. I think my heart exploded from the fright as well as the abundance of caffeine I’ve consumed today. I’m taking the cat as a sign from God that I shouldn’t drink so much caffeine.

If I’m still alive after the electronic music festival tonight I will write about it.

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