Loops

Hedayat Reda

photo credit: Hedayat Reda

I wish someone could remind me of the last time I remembered something.

It wasn’t today.

It seems like I’m always writing these days. Stories I’ve forgotten. Stories I am tired of reviewing again and again.

It’s like taking a vacation in your head and realizing that no one ever took out the garbage.

Everyone seems to think that sharing their life on Instagram is a good way to connect. It only makes me think: Why is she wearing that dress in her house?

At first, I would go into the garden and make time for myself and the earth. Now it feels like Earth is the furthest place from here.

My family is the only reason I still breathe. Without them I think I would have walked away, looking for new scenery.

Or run.

I used to run a lot.

Our house here in Cairo is just like it has always been:

Cosy. Big. Full of treasures.

Each room is like living in a palace. You never know what’s going to happen.

Will it be blue?

Will the birds chirp outside?

Will my mom walk through the door?

Sometimes I wonder what I would have done if I were alone right now. If I would have slept away the days, waking up when it was over. Like Sleeping Beauty.

My brother does that. He watches tv and plays PlayStation every day. At 8:00 p.m. he goes to his friend’s house to smoke. And watch movies. Together.

My mom’s best friend lives across the street. We drink tea together sometimes. In her back yard. She has a couch that’s blue like the ocean. She makes me tea from China—in a glass tea pot. The flower blooms inside the pot.

This is the closest I’ve come to traveling, since it’s been banned.

Sometimes I think this is how we’ve always lived. In our minds. Separate. But together.

My other brother is locked in quarantine in Marsa Alam. He sneaks out to see his friend in the room across the quad. The guard is – apparently – not bribe-able. A first for Egypt.

He comes home on Saturday.

My dad is always on the phone.

Someday I’ll tell my kids that music is the only reason I exist. That writing saves lives. That dancing is how we can be together. Forever.

If I have to arrange another Zoom call, I’ll murder someone.

My grandma asks 1001 questions and watches Turkish soap operas.

Her favorite actor is this guy who looks like Chris Hemsworth, only less blond.

Life seems like it’s on a loop.

Write wakeup write sleep write read write talk write eat write.

 I don’t want to see another book. Or screen.

To us, this isn’t monumental. We’ve lived through a revolution. This was every day. Except with power outages.

Hedayat Reda is an Egyptian writer and reader who tries to make sense of her life through writing. Someday she will figure out what genre makes sense and why people write in the first place. For now it's all an experiment. 

“Loops” is featured in 433’s “Part of the Same Place” series—submissions received from, and reflecting on, different vantage points around the world.