Lobster Man

In a land where pink trees nudge higher at a bright yellow sky everyday, it's only natural to assume that a lobster man lived there. He had to lobster feed, bright red hard skin and a clamp, his left hand though was completely normal. The man's growing rage was all thrown behind a pair of fierce purple eyes, so his rude heresies never gave away his psychotic personality, nor did his fearsome looks. The man went to the local pool with no apparent...

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The Curse of the Caste

I’m an urban boy. I love big cities with their fumy exhausts, historical monuments, rude people, wide wealth gaps, disgusting public transportation and chic restaurants. After the excruciating process of taking my IGCSE examinations this May in Cairo where the sirens and whistles are sometimes too loud for you to be able to think, I decided to visit my grandma in Alexandria which contrasts with Cairo the way New Jersey contrasts with New York. After...

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Just Another Day at School

Dumb people walking in slow motion surround me, they remind me of stranded sheep. I throw away the dirty cloth I used to clean the dried blood off my custom-made baseball bat that had nearly 127 one-inch nails attached to it…pure beauty. It did take a while to do that though; I should probably use Dettol next time. I lift the loose-hanging bandanna around my neck to cover my nose, eyes and chin, then I tighten it firmly. The electric guitar intro...

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Chains of Glass- Part 4

"19, 19 had died in that bombing. 17 of them were adults, probably parents. 17 parents had been blown into bits, ripped apart, piece by piece, mutilated like some insignificant lifeless toy, like my glass box. And something had whispered in my mind then, “Only 19?” I threw up. It had taken them thirteen hours to piece my mother together." (Continue reading Part 3 here, or skip straight to Part 1) Have you ever wondered, when you look...

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Think Again!

Summer… it’s that amazing time of the year when we get to embrace the hobbies that we barely get to practice year-long, well at least, for people who are too lazy to get a job, like me. Earlier this week, as I got to reading The Phantom of the Opera for the third time around, my father pulled a little intervention on me to force me out of my profound introversion. We ended up visiting my great-aunt, a Turk of sixty-something who was born and raised...

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Pain, He Who Works Unpredictably

I have lived a life now for not too long but much to understand quite a lot of aspects of pain. Pain is not what we all think it is. Pain does not come from disasters we think will hurt us. Pain is not planned. To be clear, you cannot exactly expect yourself to know beforehand if a certain problematic situation or tragedy will sink you in pain. People are usually called sensitive towards problems that often are not or might not be something...

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One Short Day...

In the life of Adam Ashraf, 20 years from now... Even after nearly a year living in the penthouse my spouse and I bought when Sarah turned two, the panoramic view from the expansive window pane never fails to take my breath away. The sight of every skyscraper looking back at me from my Upper West Side castle in the sky continues to tantalize me. It was what drove me to move to the city from across the world to begin with, after high school,...

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