Shattered Windows & The Sound Of Drums.

It’s been a good day, even tho  it started off on the wrong leg with almost 40 hours of no sleep, big shit poppin’ and lil things stoppin’.  The kind of good day that comes with a hue of sadness and inconsolable disappointment over battles you’ve lost.

Eid was great, with an animatedly chuckling  family, a couple of close friends and inhumane amounts of cholesterol-choked food. It offered this pause that comes with priority of quality over, well, life, you know the kind where no matter what important shit you’re doing, you always stop everything and enjoy eid gatherings, and despite an awful strain of weeks.

And I daresay you come out of it with a thing or two over the coffee you’ve made in the middle of the night even tho you had to sleep because you felt like it, with the laptop on the window ledge and your dad sleeping right there against a pillow looking out because he couldn’t get himself to sleep on a day off.

Life Lesson #304: You haven’t been loved if you haven’t spent Eid at an Egyptian home.

Life Lesson #305: There are still good people out there. Somewhere.

Life Lesson #306: You haven’t been truly heartbroken if you haven’t had to see someone you care about fuck up their lives irrevocably and nothing you’d say or do mattered. And you haven’t been truly broken if you’ve never found it in you to stop trying anyway. Whoever said that with great love comes great sorrow was not rolling high on hormones after all.

Life Lesson #307: Sometimes seeing that better people exist is enough to save someone. And sometimes, not even an apocalyptic march of saints could suffice.

Life Lesson #308: You stop being a child at heart when you learn when to walk away.

 

Life Lesson #309: Nothing screams out ‘I’ve lost hope’ than an atheist praying for a friend. Giving up doesn’t come in a worse package. And seeing someone revert to an option that to them never even qualified as a last resort, is like seeing  a rundown terminally ill patient travel halfway across the world for acutherapy in that little uncharted institution in Asia he read about in one of the brochures handed out to save face when the doctor gives the ‘We’ve done everything we could’ speech. It is the saddest experience you’ll ever be unfortunate enough to behold on this godforsaken planet, so much that  you’ll wish they hadn’t ‘lost’ – for lack of a better word – against whatever believe you may hold. If you have, then congratulations my friend, you’ve seen what a person looks like when he’s completely and utterly defeated.

Life Lesson #310: You know when you have that fight with your parents where the inevitable age gap causes a disagreement that neither of you could phrase logically to the other and you call them overprotective and they quip the usual ‘You’ll know what it feels like when you have kids of your own’ line? Ironically, you don’t have to be a parent to know the full effect of that blow.

Life Lesson #311: All is well if it ends well, but what it really depends on is your definition of well.

Of Jokes That Stopped Being Funny.

I haven’t blogged in a while, but it’s not because I suddenly popped out a life or shit stopped happening. Au contraire, it was the kind of writer’s block where you back off from the damn blank post for fear you’ll spill your heart out to absolute strangers at a whiny moment and come to regret it when the Kübler-Ross model shifts – which is a technique, might I add, that most of you bloggers out there should learn.

Also, I’m re-discovering the cathartic pros of working till you’re numb – which reminds me of a friend who, on the topic of Prozac, backfired my joke by saying that they could chip me into tablets and send the Prozac line filing for bankruptcy. I would have been pissed, hadn’t she been right that is.

I’ve recently had a blinding moment of clarity that has sent most of the givens I had about life, the universe and everything into 42 shooting stars that I was desperate enough to wish upon. I’d rather not further elaborate, but a good friend says it’s something we thank God for. I’m taking his word because I’d rather not go nuts this soon before my finals. All I gotta say is that I’m at that Tupac phase of my life where I have three years of bad choices to fix and consequences to own up to and I have a feeling I’ll end up getting shot too early on at it. And I don’t necessarily hate that one bit.

I don’t know what the fuck I’m writing. Not that it matters, because neither do you.

I used to believe that being a good person is a conscious choice you make everyday, now I understand how people might wake up one morning and forget why they’ve been making that choice for that long because all those who used to remind them haven’t been around for while. I used to laugh at people who say the wrong crowd would make the most self-righteous lose their way and lecture them about strength of character, but then again I wasn’t the one who laughed last, was I?

Assholes aren’t born, they’re made, carefully-crafted and programmed into being one. And I now see why being an asshole works, and how it works, or rather worked, in this context at least. After all, I’ve learned from the best.

But that’s probably because I woke up one morning and found out that I have become one.

And I don’t mind that one bit either. But I guess that comes with the package.

On a lighter note, pun intended, I used to have this joke with my dad where instead of asking him how his day’s been, I’d check his cigarette pack and look at my wristwatch.

Then you grow up and that joke stops being funny for several compelling reasons and you start wondering what the hell happened, when you’re probably the best one to answer that question.

Problem is, after three years, it’s kind of hard, if not impossible, to retrace your tracks back to that specific point of time where everything took a wrong turn, because life’s not a videogame. You tend to be given the map AFTER you’ve lost all of your lives trying to get to the wrong objective with ‘Game Over’ flashing on your screen.

You know what the funny part is? If I had the chance to go back in time, I wouldn’t take it back. I’d go about it differently with the knowledge I have now to fuck them up the exact same way, sit back and watch with popcorn.

I’ve learned, yes,  just not in the conventional definition of learning.

Oh well.

Because Nothing Else Matters.

What All Food Should Look Like.

In response to theories of evolution; it’s 2012 and you can still rule the planet with the right set of mammary glands.

Proof?

..I rest my case.

‘Nothing is true, everything is permitted. The wisdom of our creed is revealed in these words. We work in the dark, to serve the light. We are Assassins.’

Mercy Kill.

Today, I came upon the realization that my automatic reaction to puberty is nothing short of this:

Needless to add, it wasn’t pretty.

Because, you know, it wasn’t a mere subtle transformation as it is with all the hormonal zombies that recently acquired the functioning ovaries, ‘woman’ noun and dubbed suitable by the most recent form of the dying ritual of sending a teenager all on his own into the jungle and asking him to bring home a butchered gorilla to assert his manhood. It was a full blown mutation, in full throttle, with the appendages and the sticky goo coming out of the mouth letting out little, though amply voiced, graaaawrs.

It involved slaughter.

And three innocent casualties whose only fault was being at the wrong place, at the wrong time and inconveniently sitting with their ears angled towards the, formerly latent, explosion.

It’s a little funny how people call it a mercy kill; it’s become so common as to acquire the social acceptance of a posh downtoning Merriam-Webster-certified term.

It’s humanity going: ‘Oh well, I guess that can’t be stopped, might as well make it a thing so when aliens land in 5012, they think we had a grip on things and all. Coin that shit in the books.’

It’s evolution going: ‘Kill all the pussies, and make the surviving minority carnivorously man-eating, in any meaning of the word that qualifies. Make them bitches think it was my idea.’

You know, this whole chick thing, yeh, I don’t buy it. It wasn’t a great sight to see myself being a chick, you know, concentrating on actual semantics and shit.

Shortly afterwards, the whole I’m-a-dude-at-heart thing started getting more attention than it should. False advertising works best I reckon. They started begging for that shit to come back. The same ones who debated the tranny theory with a passion I never knew possible away from an ‘eat all sushi you can and you’ll get it for free’ buffet.

The kind of passion you see on a morbidly obese American male on seeing a ‘Fried chicken wings, 387 flavors' ad.

I now know why this whole ‘wiping out humanity and start it again on a clean slate’ scene stopped at around 14 BC. God knew better, because by then, they were more than qualified to finish themselves off and like him in the process. You see progress right there, changing the attitude from ‘flood them bitches’ and ‘torch them hoes’ to ‘get me some popcorn, she got a tight grip on his spinal cord and he’ll be oozing pudding anytime now.’

Chicks survived the same way Chihuahuas do, they have admirable tantrum phasing, you’ll fear it no matter how small and harmless it may look as soon as you realize just where it can bite you.

Dudes survived the same way that rat in an anaconda's death vice, he’s oblivious enough not to know that they feed every two weeks to warm up and start cuddling themselves into the hug that will irrevocably throw their spine out of alignment.

Evolution didn’t leave males defenseless tho, it gave them a couple of pointers, shoved them so deep into their subconscious that they wouldn’t know it’s protecting them, because if they did then chicks would know too. Subtle: ‘Girls who like soccer are hot.’ and ‘Man, she actually watches Top Gear. I’m proposing next week.’

Yes, you got it right, they’re protecting themselves by looking for dudes. Or the next best thing.

Shitty day, just like the former and prolly like the next. I now turn in with the hope that tomorrow has more hours, less events and enough coffee. Good night, loathsome humans.

Also, kids got totally scammed. I don’t like growing up.

Of Senioritis.

Disclaimer: If you’re a fan of good ole consistency and/or not given to rants, this post is not for you. Mind you, the comment box isn’t, either.

Readers should be noted that I’m writing this post sleepless and inebriated, because waking up three hours into a good night’s sleep after staying awake for 23 hours only to get doped off of the wrong allergy medication, conveniently after you’ve ingested a generous portion of coffee, is an epileptic combination I should patent to being a Rory. And mind you, by rules of equilibrium ruling the universe randomly, justly, and having considerably small odds of perishing, there can only be one Rory.

Also, I can’t feel my head. And I like it. It’s growing on me.

It’s the end of the week, at last. As usual though, it will only go out kicking and screaming. What’s with getting academically raped, random incompetent freaks taking the consensual bit out of hiring and, well, overall weirdass people. The whole goddamn country is having trouble getting a job and I wake up to find myself employed. Don’t get me wrong, I actually wanted the job, I was just under the impression that I have to apply first. Oh well. I guess I’m just that awesome.

A friend once said that she liked marketing because it was evil; convincing people and probing at their subconscious to put their money in all the right places, which happen to be all the wrong places, making her feel like a charismatic villain, only a tobacco roll away from another Clint Eastwood. Well, I can now honestly say that I know what she means; and I’m hooked.

Not quite the opportune timing.

Along the lines of volcanoes shooting chocolate fountains and garden gnomes who gave up on your backyard before you were enough of a failure to know they could actually do that, I flunk two exams; the only two I sat anyway. I get through puberty as a straight A-student, without having flunk once in my life, and I manage to do it two months before the biggest finals I may ever have to sit. I don’t even know what to say to that. Except, well, fuck.

They call it senioritis.

I call it White tea.

Coffee stands in a corner, with its grin setting the smoke swirling into its own pseudo halo and your conscience seizing back into its iron clad enamoration, takes you back into its loving bosom and says bitch, get sipping, I don’t have all day.

And you take it, like the vampire you are; cold, stale or plain crappy, with gratitude.

On an unrelated note, I love my father, with a passion. The kind of father who takes two months off, promising to sleep when you do and wake up in time to your schedules, just to sit there with his newspaper and coffee and support you through the last 80 days that could make or break your future, is nothing I had the luxury of seeing walk this earth any other place on this godforsaken planet.

Dad, you get a shout out.

In Case You Were Wondering, That’s What Genius Looks Like.

Beauty.

Sappy Late Night Nothings.

It’s a beautiful night. I’ve been working ever since I woke up, and for some reason, I blanked out for two hours. I did absolutely nothing, and it felt..it felt like nothing, which in turn felt great. The weather is beautiful tonight, painfully chilly, and very ‘there’. It got me thinking about the last time I just sat up to watch the sunrise. It’s been a while since I did that, I liked to stay up late at night just to see if I could tell the rate at which the sun comes up, and yes I mean the actual mathematical rate, and I always miscalculated it, which in turn made me stay up late the next night, and the next night, and the next night. I’d make my mug of coffee and watch old plays and feel like a grownup. Sometimes I’d bring my blankey and cuddle into a ball on the desk in the balcony, so my sky vision is panoramic. I’d pretend there’s no ledge, and no gravity. It’s the kind of cold night that fills your head and nostrils with its presence, stops your weary head and compels you to hear its whooshes, and only its whooshes. It doesn’t leave room for any of your worries, and it consumes the illusion of time, warps it, replenishes it, extinguishes it, makes the time tunnel take all sorts of tumbles and turns, bringing you back and forth like a copper boomerang in an AC magnetic field, lost, controlled by a random pattern that can neither be pinpointed nor formulated into an equation. It tricks your head into not registering memories, since you can’t really feel time, or acknowledge it, and you’re free of time, remembering and being. The cold gives even the intangibles presence, it somehow freezes your feelings over so you don’t get emotional sickness, and things that used to hurt are only ‘there’..and they don’t hurt anymore,  it makes you aware of how many things are ‘there’, and somehow, with so many things that are there, there’s no room for anything else. Not even you. And it feels..splendid.

The kind of night that sounds like this:

We’re Half Awake In A Fake Empire.

Sappy Can Be Beautiful Too. Sometimes.

My Will.

1. I want Tech N9ne to rap at my wake. And not the sad existentialist songs, I want a fucking party, with stage diving, lighting and smoke effects. People get to be groped while they’re at it too. You’re welcome.
   
2. I want a funny tombstone that makes it impossible for people to mourn properly. It has to include the following words: ‘Awesome, Rory, Coffee, Badass.’ 
   Or:
                                                                                                                     
   
   
3. I want my coffin to be a TARDIS.
4. I want people to take turns throwing coffee beans inside my TARDIS coffin (in the wake), in the old tradition of letting go.
   
5. I want Baileys to be incessantly served at my funeral until everybody gets sufficiently shitfaced, but never quite pass out. Hors d'oeuvre shall be sushi, and the waiters should be welsh so that when they give the guests a creepy fairytale about my haunting their ass if they don’t swallow, people actually buy it. And after the inevitable success, the waiters are to quip an annoying ‘That’s What She Said.’
   
6. I want all that remains of my fortune to go into buying my dad a cabin by a lake, the one he always wanted. He could live there with Grandma and be happy forever.
7. My collection of dystopic novels goes to Reem Adel, Laura Raef (if she'll have it) and Hadya Mansour. Ali Moneib gets to have my blue jeep wrangler that I'll undoubtedly own by the time, or matchbox of a car which I’ll most realistically own, if it’s in one piece by then (that could be the way I go, have you seen my driving?) as well as my credit card which he can abuse online, on etsy, or on one of those shady forums on the dark web, I don't judge. My Maths notes which are too invaluable not to be passed on to another human being (Laura would want this) and all my graphic-related gadgets, gaming laptop and a 10-year subscription to Nola cupcakes goes to Amr Rifky. And make sure they don’t arrive daily because then he'll get fat, stop doing capoeira and hate me and that’s all I’ll ever hear when he comes to visit, and I’ll be a little too tied up to retort. Yara Al Sayes gets to have any and all cult or fan merch I might own at the time, and Andre Michel gets a freepass to use my memory to pick up chicks.
   
8. I want to be remembered every time someone has coffee with my very own custom roast.
   
9. I want Kurt Vonnegut to pitch a sarcastic existentialist speech that, again, makes people unable to mourn properly without short outbursts of breaking out in hysterical laughter, which they’ll feel awfully guilty for, at which point Kurt would go on and the cycle continues. In case people’s spirits are actually there at their wake, that’d be terribly entertaining.
   
10. When people take turns giving a word, they have to do it in a British accent and keep a straight face, or else they have to start all over again.
    
11. I want Danny DeVito to show up and make everyone who ever made fun of midgets feel like a paramount failure of a human being and give people midget torso hugs on my behalf.
    
12. I want a Rory comic subscription addressed back to my slot.
    
13. I want Snoop Dogg to be disguised as the wise bartender, and freestyle people’s grief away by talking about how I kept it hood until everyone’s sick of how awesome I was.
    
14. As for the scripture that is to be recited when I’m put into the ground, I’d like Tech N9ne’s Hope For A Higher Power to be reiterated by a pimped out priest who is absolutely required to wear bling and have fairly good flow. The sermon is to be wrapped up with “Peace out.”
    
15. I’d like a piñata to be hung in a corner for all the people I pissed off, I’d hate to go without having a clean slate.
    
16. I want a double who keeps running from room to room and confuses people as to whether I’m actually dead or not. That should go on for a while until someone thinks they’ve lost it and start claiming they see dead people, then the double is to walk out and stop being a creepy motherfucker.
    
17. And last but not least, I want an incredibly hot actor to be hired and wail uncontrollably at the lost love of his life that cannot be possibly replaced by any other fun-sized boob-bearing creature.
    
18. Whoever remains of the Timelords should carry my TARDIS coffin back to my slot, I'll be lead to the next life on the shoulders of a wibbly wobbly doctor procession in a timey wimey manner.
19. After everyone is gone, I want someone to sell my slot and give my body to one of those companies that turn your organic remains into tree fertilizer. After all, I don't want to be buried, I want to be a tree when I'm dead. In all seriousness.

Of Strangers That Don’t Know They’re Being Watched.

I miss being able to take the evening to myself and read a good book. I think that’s what they wanted out of education in Egypt, to shove so much information down people’s throats that they no longer have the ability to ingest it on their own, let alone know which ones they want or have the time for the mere process of free thought. I thought I could beat the system, have a life and an education, the good old hardcore way. Now I’m wondering  if I’ve overestimated my abilities or am underestimating them right now because of a shot morale.

Watching people  is entertaining. I may come off as a classist bourgeoisie bitch after this post, but I don’t really care. Your opinion of me is something that doesn’t really concern me, and this, I write for me. It gets pretty boring in class sometimes.

There’s the socially inept nerd. The genius who works his ass off every waking hour of the day and hardly gets any sleep, with huge eye bags hidden behind disproportionately thick reading glasses, perceives classes as his only chance to socialize, since he can’t really function in any other field than academe. He’s always trying so hard to fit in and being rebutted, because people around this age have a cruel cool-o-meter. He’s always laughing nervously in conversations, starting and stopping abruptly when the people he’s talking to are not even smirking. He hyperventilates and shakes when made fun of. He comes early to class every time, and tries to strike a friendship up with the teacher by trying to think of a smart question, who now ignores that he’s even talking and lets the laughing hysteria handle his breaking voice till it dies out. It’s not a surprise that he can’t come up with something that is beyond his conformist head, for someone whose only knowledge comes from a third-world country, government-assigned textbook, his only intelligence is in his finding out the patterns of medieval curriculums. We still use the same Arabic syllabus as that of my grandma’s, and their idea of modifying it is adding the mechanism of CRT in physics. Needless to add, he always makes a fool out of himself, and doesn’t seem to have any friends, if you don’t count the people who are getting him to do their homework. He’s always ignored if it doesn’t have anything to do with work, locked outside of a tightly-knit circle of bros, interrupted and never heard. I don’t think he’s aware of it, since he seems to be enjoying the attention of being given their copybooks. His friends are demeaning and abusive, and I don’t think I’ve ever seen him relaxed. His clothes look like his dad is trying to get him to look socially acceptable, about the only 18 year old sporting an 80’s design polished brown leather shoes I’ve seen. He can’t keep eye contact with anyone and settles for keeping his broken look fixated on people’s shoulders, or at a point in the horizon beyond their heads. I’m guessing the conversation makes him nervous enough that if he tried to lock another person’s gaze he’d die of tachycardia. I see him an overworked and underpaid accountant in a company where his ideas will be stolen, he’ll never get promoted, marry a chick he’s never seen that his mother has picked out for him and grow into a brown tie and never see any different till he turns 80 and dies in his armchair, working at a crossword puzzle like his life depended on it.

There’s the neanderthal of a chick whose greasy hair bypasses her ass, and long fingernails that make her incapable of picking up objects, old nail polish that’s never tended to, wardrobe that smells of stagnant sweat and looks like a grocer took his ambition of fashion design to the next level. She draws a cross in pencil on top of every page, rubs her finger in it and kisses it with every page she turns, leaving it smudgy and wearing the paper down to shreds by the 6th month. It took me a while to get my horrified expression to be understandably poker-faced. Mentalities like hers scare me. You try so hard to convince yourself that those are a minority, that you pick your own community and even though you’re living around them, you will not be affected, that you don’t judge people according to their looks or backgrounds, you’re only being a classist asshole by thinking along those lines, but you can’t, because people’s looks, backgrounds and manners of speech are a rooted in who they are. They’re acquired, just as their beliefs and morals are. They show you which era they’re stuck in and how they react to progress.

There’s the huge faction of girls who look and dress like a tiny microcosms of their housewife of a mother. They make it a point to breathe quietly, and never say what they think. Sometimes, they make it a point not to think anything other than what they’ve been told to think, and sometimes, not even that. They walk in, keep their eyes on the tiles they’re stepping on and make sure the copybooks don’t make a sound as they hit the desks. They run a little when out of a crowd, and breathe normally again when they’re part of the background again. They all look alike, talk alike, move alike and huddle. They don’t know any different, and they don’t want to. They have their little quiet crowds, and its bubble is almost discernible, an entity with its own vibrations and existing in its own medium. They’d choke if it was poked through, or if they were forced to come out of it, even for a fraction of a second, to maybe talk to a new person, think of an advanced question that’s not covered in the curriculum, or laugh out of cue. The thought of their lives kill me. Not necessarily having it, even just seeing that some people live like that. Reduced to that.

There are the plastics. The Barbies and Jocks, the ones all of the above stop to look at when they saunter in. They’re all perfectly cloned and a little hard to distinguish from in my head as Asians are to the rest of the world. Same shoes, haircuts and blackberries. Same fake smiles and exaggerated hugs, same lingo. Same everything really. They’re especially sensitive to the smallest shifts in social trends, and make sure to keep up. It almost seems like they’re in on all the unspoken rules of a secret fraternity/sorority left from the days Nazism was in. They know all the right proportions, lengths and forms of acceptable conversation. They’re usually selfish snobs who never help if they can help it, and never concentrate unless they don’t have enough coverage. There are the hunks, who are a lot similar to that category, with a little addition of making sure the ratio of their muscle to brain grown is 5:1 at any point in given time.

There are the religious fucks, in all religions and mutations, the ones who spend 78% of their time researching theology and quoting scripture, then complain about not having time to work on their assignments. They’re self-righteous assholes who think that getting to heaven is by scoring points, by hours spent in research, bullying outcasts and obliterating their sex to the point of no return, looking like a tranny. They handle their bodies the same way a person would handle a deformed baby; they keep it covered, unisex and untended to. Their speech is integrated with religious aphorisms and what god wants, as opposed to what they want, which I don’t think they even know. They’ve been taught that different is atheist, that being sweet is whoring yourself out and that caring for worldly matters such as studying takes out points out of their heavenly score.

And there’s the nonchalant cool guys, the ones that everybody can’t decide whether they wanna be like or be nothing like, and settle on not really figuring it out because they never dared to be that different. They’re outspoken, think outside of the box, usually have one or two things they’re exceptionally good at and are every teacher’s nightmare. They have their own clan of worshippers, of all of the above categories. Much like how one would like to keep their friends close and their enemies closer. They can’t understand him, they can’t be like him, they can’t control him, so they keep him close, but not to close. They have a lot of friends, neither of which are really friends. And they can think, but were never given the chance to use it.

People watching is much like bird watching, except that it’s not for the faint of heart.

I need to get away.

*Snorfindesdrillsalgoho

Doudou atwal menni!

Time stands still to record the day that not only is Doudou taller than me, but she’s taller than Marine too. I had to miss your birthday but you know I miss you like a fat kid on a diet misses chocolate cake. Happy birthday <3

Take-Your-Kid-To-Work Day.

One of my favourite places is my dad’s clinic. Most people would roll their eyes at a parent’s invitation into their workplace and make the stupidest excuses to get out of it. But then again, it’s one of the reasons I don’t understand people most of the time.

You know how some people radiate off of the things they own? It’s like that with my father. Walking into his clinic is nothing less of taking a stroll down an aisle in his brain. Everything in there has a reason. He’s much like monk with the OCD of having to put everything in place with a certain angle, or else he wouldn’t be able to function properly.

For instance, there’d always be light new age music playing in the background. The volume has to be loud enough to be heard and low enough to fade into your subconscious and not submerge the conversation. When I asked him why he didn’t play classical like he preferred at home, he’d answer that the patients don’t appreciate that raw unedited kind of art, that it has to be processed into a more digestible form, and new age is his most tolerated compromise. When commenting that the roses downplay the beautiful green Murano vase, which happens to be his favourite, he’d say that it’s the only way to bring it out in such an obscure spot. For a while there he couldn’t sit right until his desk was spotless, I noticed that was the case and got up to clean it myself, to which he added that he scolds the cleaning lady every morning for forgetting to do so. I can’t blame her, she doesn’t know my dad.  When asked why he tore out the page full of previous appointments, he caught my drift and answered that it’s not there to boast through, but organize. He’d then note the most outlandish observations, and put a satirical moral twist to them, lending a mere routine as cleaning his reading glasses into an analogy that makes life giggle at its own shortcomings.

And that went on with everything, nothing was just there because he had no other place to put it.  The intra-oral camera was covered in neatly cut out plastic for when the patients reflexively bit down on it, the phone would only be answered in between appointments and never during, or before. He’d always block out a full 30 minutes during which he’d be so absorbed into his personal medical notes that his coffee would grow cold and he’d not even hear the receptionist walking in or my random comments as he studies what he’s about to work on for the day, the kind of focus that breaks through thin air, enviable and revered, but never fails to be awfully sweet when he notices the extra entity in the room.

The receptionist is an old man, as old as my grandpa were he alive, who leads a modest life and gets me all sorts of chocolate and candy, sometimes even when he couldn’t afford them. He’s the kind of man that vibes out love and rekindles your hope in mankind, even though he’s not much different in outlook than the people you’d be scared to cross lives with if met in a different walk of life. He cherishes my dad for not being the usual sadistic boss figure and seems to not help how often he radiates that comfortable air of gratitude that seems to trail along the breaks of his sentences.

My dad would then take 10 silent minutes staring into one of his favourite spots in the room to gather his thoughts, during which he’d often storm out of the chair with a preset destination that he wants to set right, like a cord that was out of place or a towel that wasn’t perfectly folded, or the plant that was pushed a couple of inches to the side and set to lean against the surreally brush-stroked wall. The set of colourful lotions are set on the sink in prioritized order, so he’d reach for them by habit without wasting time on thinking which one he needs, much like a mad scientist’s lab. He’d giggle when I ask him which one is normal human soap, and respond without a moment of doubt that it’s the third one on the left. A blue luminescent liquid that catches light and makes your hands smell like something from planet Vulcunupiter. That’s the smell I’ve always mind-linked dad with when he’d stroke my face when I was 6 up to this day, a blend of latex glove powder, cigarettes and planet Vulcunupiter.

I’d inevitably feel that I’m disturbing his mind bubble, and tread off into the balcony, which never fails to have the perfect ratio of sun and breeze. A ratio that is hard to come by in winter. For those who think I’m exaggerating for literary acclaim, it’s facing south, which means it only gets sun as it sets, making the morning a weird blend of indirect sunlight and a warm yet sufficiently chilly breeze. The prefect equation to integrate a summery afternoon during winter, rendering it to  improvement in the first and third faction of the day, especially that he only has morning and night appointments. Needless to say, he explained the latter as well, because even the strategic balcony position had to have a reason to him. I’d drag a chair from one of the waiting rooms and a tiny table and start working. It’s always so quiet in there, with the air hanging around like an old friend, and time seems to have its own pace, another peculiar attribute to everything dad touches. It’s never rushed. I’d lose track of time and get so much done only to find out when he walks in to take a smoke and 5 minutes to himself between appointments that it’s only been a mere two hours, a record for my entire physics assignment that would take 5 hours on a good day to get down.

Then after what feels like a whole day, he’d clean up and put everything back in place, always in the same order, always making sure to leave the music on for as long as possible, and we’d go home after the 4 hours that make up for his morning appointments.