What He Faces

Here in Cairo, Egypt the coordinates are unspecified. Micro machines multiply like big data. Exponentials deliver the truth in a revealed exposure. A frame is within a frame, within a frame, within a frame. The age of the search for freedom causes the spirit to shudder in rapid successive bursts. An individual drowns in the vast sums ever going in meters’ machines. One cannot stop the flow. Egyptians risk their lives just to get by. Spending time here gave me more than simple pounds, but an intimate view under the covers of a culture bound by metal stick pins holding tradition together. A disproportionate exchange passed by quickly like traffic my right to left. Your left to right. Plenty of back-up is needed to become like a child for a new view of your world. Finish all the sliced cucumbers and tomatoes. The plate has to be empty for you to receive. Maybe it’s wet with a few seeds.

The mural painted on the ramp’s smooth concrete column sparkled as a surreal Arabic script. Wide Sharpie markers outlined its edges. A crude roller. Glitter fills the inside like the surprise of a jelly-filled donut. A skilled sculptor could carve hieroglyphics into the column’s spherical curve. The symbols retrieve who he once was and who he will be in belief. The truth transfers automatically in the brief. The Designer has not made reflective souls irregular. Street laborers hustle fast to flip sesame brittle sticks, pick up pedestrians flashing sign language and pre-arranged fruit. Egyptians don’t quit to keep the kosheri in their loved ones bellies so they keep fanning the corn over hot coals. The layers and layers of engine exhaust ain’t allowing the sun rays to shine through the dryer lint. Just breathing catches everything nobody else wants. Friction in the congestion. There’s more filtering in this screen. Access denied for radiant expression. In one trip, the transgressions were removed far from us as far as the east is from the west.   

The picture brings us near in word and in digital without a seatbelt. Until you’re here it’s not known what he faces. At some point prior the nucleus loaded into the micro with their belongings stowed. His mama’s silhouetted face is covered in public: low profile. Her son’s hands are pressed against the window pane holding on to anything he can see beyond the routine trip; a fight in of itself. His jacket provides warmth over his no-name brand clothing styled by an income gap. Multi-colors are happy to be at least one article. Do not forget to glance at what surrounds you on all sides. What’s next isn’t known until you go deeper. Advance a little further as the room allows next to the maroon micro marooned in the herd: bumper to bumper steer. The pace makes you fix your face. For a moment he was a man of character in the coming age of distraction; clarity in focus. He daydreamed for an eternity. The man snapped back into boyhood. Curious gestures shook his small frame during the split seconds when he noticed a beholder in a season of blessing and opportunity aiming the gift towards another child.

To walk like an Egyptian means facing Egyptian challenges on pace to save some. As far as the eastern horizon is from the west, so far he removes our transgressions from us.