The action is happening in a typical Thursday (or to be more accurate, it is Friday 3 in the morning) in Karim’s apartment in Zamalek. Karim was having a party and now everyone left except for him, Dina and Hossam ……. And some coke.
Karim (looking at Dina): Ok, I know Hossam is staying as his wife and children are travelling, and let’s face it he has nowhere better to be at right now (Hossam at the back approving: that is so true), but what the hell are you still doing here?
Dina: I am not driving home that wasted. I am going to stay here tonight.
Hossam: Won’t Ahmed (her fiancé) be so mad about this?
Dina: I don’t care
Hossam and Karim stared at her because they knew she was lying. They kept staring for a couple of seconds waiting for the right answer.
Dina: Well, he won’t know because I won’t tell him, and neither will you.
Karim (sarcastically): That seems about right.
Everyone is going to a spot in the living room that was suitable for human beings to sit, and it was no easy task. Finally they settled.
Hossam: Man! Look at us all together alone wasted in Karim’s apartment like the old days. It’s been what since the last same gathering? Two? Three years?
Karim: 3 years
Dina: last time we were here. Hossam had just been engaged, I had just met Ahmed and you … you … and I guess you are the same.
Karim (proudly): I’ve got two promotions since then….. God, that is so sad. I do not even like my job. I am the only that has been the same in 3 years.
Hossam: No, wait. You were dating this girl Amira back then. You loved that girl. Oh wait that is not good.
Karim: Thanks for the reminder, bro.
Hossam: oh wait. Your hair was taller.
Karim: yes it was. That is a change.
Dina: I hated it, though
Karim: Me too. So here is something in me that changed for the better.
Hossam: I’ll drink to that (standing up to grab a bear)
Dina: As if you need an excuse.
Hossam: I do not need that tone, not here and now at least. As long as my wife is not with me and there are no kids shitting themselves everywhere, then I will drink whenever I feel like it.
Dina: take it easy, man.
Dina (to karim): I have not seen him that passionate about something as he is now for that beer for a very long time
Karim: marriage can do miracles, right?
Dina: you say that as if men lose their beings after marriage, but it is women that pay the price. Look who is drinking and doing drugs now with his friends and who is stuck with the kids in god knows where.
Dina said that in a very feminist angry tone that Karim felt really scared. But one, not Karim, can also get the feeling that she was subjecting her fear of what might happen to her. Also, she expected a fight from Hossam because she knew how much he loved whining about his marriage, yet surprisingly there was no response from his side.
While Hossam was reaching for a beer from the fridge, he was distracted by some candles in the fridge. He looked at them for a few seconds, while Dina was arguing. Then he picked them along with the beer. He turned off the lights and lighted some of the candles and went to lie on the couch.
Karim: What the hell are you doing?
Hossam: I am lighting some candles.
Karim: Yes, I noticed. Why?
Hossam: to make things more romantic.
Dina: Why would we need things to be romantic between us three?
Hossam: Friends can have romantic times together by the way.
Karim: that is the gayest thing ever.
Hossam: Shut up. We used to do that all the time.
Dina: we, literally, never did that.
Karim: oh! You made Dina use the word literally. It is bad.
Hossam: Shut up, Karim. If we did not use to do that Dina, then we should do that more often
Dina: why?
Karim (interrupting them): oh wait. I just remembered an incident involving all of us and a candle.
Dina and Karim are laughing so hard.
Hossam: I do not know what you’re talking about (he knows).
Karim: Oh! Then allow to remind you
Hossam: You don’t need to
Karim: I insist. Once upon a time in a school in Zamalek, a bunch of six graders went to perform some songs before the whole school students and their respected families. The pianist who shall remain nameless, in specific, was on fire, literally. Hey got so carried away by the never folding mystery of music to the extent that he lost control of his feet, and hit the piano on which he was playing. For some reason known only to god and our music teacher, there was a candle put on the piano, as a decoration. Needless to say that candle fell on pianist’s lab. He went on screaming “Mom, my penis! My penis,” to which a bunch of nine graders, and some of the fathers, replied “Fag! Fag!” Blessed be that saint of a pianist, he was the reason for introducing profanity to a lot of kids on that day.
Dina: Oh my god. That story never gets old, and you Hossam always find a way to make us remember it.
Hossam: it is not my fault. Whenever, there is a piano, a mike, music, or now a candle you remember. But you know the thing is I am not bothered this time by the story. I am bothered because I remember that it’s been ages since I touched a piano, and I bet you karim did not touch your guitar in ages, either.
Dina: that is really sad and we were really good. I remember back in university when we were all planning to start a band together.
Hossam: you are still living the dream. You sing for a living
Dina: Well maybe not for so long.
Hossam: What’s that supposed to mean?
Dina: nothing…… Do you remember when we used to come here to this damn apartment and spend hours just playing music. God we were really young and free.
Karim: THIS FUCKIN’ APPARTMENT
Hossam: what’s wrong with him?
Dina: We do not ask this question anymore.
Karim: I am dead serious. The problem is with this apartment. It has always been like an isolation room that does not abide by this world’s laws. It like an independent country where we do whatever the fuck we want. For example, in here drugs are not forbidden. It is actually encouraged, nay, a necessity. We are really free here
Hossam: But at the end of the day we have to leave it and go on with our lives in the real world.
Karim: That is exactly the point. We cannot stay here forever, and out there we always think about this room, because the real world is just too limiting for us. It is like we are in a Tarantino movie. Holy shit that is a great analogy. There is everything you would expect in a Tarantino movie: drugs, witty scattered conversations, offensive remarks most of the time targeted at Hossam, and few locations, and in our case only one location which is this apartment. In this apartment, we are in the chatty part of the scene, like when Vincent was just talking to Brett about burgers in Paris in Pulp Fiction or when Hans was talking to that French farmer about milk. Everything is cool and under control. Few seconds later, hell breaks loose and bullets are flying around and people dying. That is exactly what happens to us when we leave this apartment.
Dina: So what you’re saying is that there are some people on the other side of that door with gun waiting to fire at us
Karim: Not in the literal sense, there isn’t. There are, however, two kids waiting for Hossam with two machine guns full of poop waiting to fire at him any second. And there is that misogynist insecure fiancé waiting to fire at you hundreds of years’ worth of backwardness, and a boss waiting to fire at me tens of worthless tasks leading me one day closer to suicide.
Hossam: You talkative peace of shit. What exactly are you proposing?
Karim: I am proposing to stay in the apartment forever.
Hossam: Are you serious right now?
Karim: Dead serious. I am proposing to stay at the chatty part of the movie forever.
Hossam: Ok first of all, the chatty part in any Tarantino movie is the worst. We watch his movies for the violent parts.
Karim: Yes, my bad. I overused the analogy.
Hossam: Second of all, how old are you? We cannot just leave the real world and live in this apartment forever.
Dina: then we should make our real lives look like our lives in the apartment.
Karim: Now we are talking
Dina: We are happy here because we are ourselves. We do what we please, and we can do that elsewhere.
Hossam: yes but the thing is
Dina: oh please Hossam can you not be such a pussy?
Karim: you made Dina use the word pussy as an insult!!
Hossam: oh that cannot be good.
Karim: No it can’t. It is like being called a fag by Harvey Milk.
Dina: I am sorry, Hos. I just got carried away. Now let’s get started with the decisions that are going to change our real lives to be more like our lives here in the apartment. What is it that makes life here in the apartment fun? I will start with myself. Here, there is no pressure from Ahmed. How can we fix that? Honesty. So I am texting him right now, telling him I am partying with you alone in this apartment. I am sure he will understand. What else is more fun here in the apartment?
Karim: Drugs
Dina: So we should be more tolerable with drugs in our real lives. What else?
Hossam: There are no kids here.
(Awkward silence)
Dina: Well, we cannot do anything about that, can we? But you should have more alone time with your wife. What else?
Karim: There is no boring work in here.
Dina: you should, seriously, quit your job. It is long overdue.
Karim: After all of what I achieved? And if I left this job, I would go to another boring one. Interesting jobs do not pay the bills. But at least I can ask my boss to lay off my back a little.
Dina: Yes, now we’re talking. Now we all have to do is chill.
Hossam (sarcastically): Yes. Chill, because tomorrow when we leave this apartment life will be so great, even more fun than it is here.
Karim: Seriously, what shitty thing had to happen in your life for you to become… you. My guess, it is nothing less than child rape.
Hossam: Why am I always the butt of the gay and rape jokes? And shame on you Dina, Mrs. Feminist. What a hypocrite!
Dina: answering your question, there has to be someone of whom the community always make fun. Any community needs someone to prey on. So it is normal for any community to choose someone, the weakest probably, to inject on them gay, and inappropriate joke, as a kind of exerting power. It is just simple social Darwinism.
Karim: I did not put that much thought on it to be honest.
Hossam: That is so nerdy even for you Dina. We should make of you now, nerd.
Dina: Fuck you.
Karim: Thattagirl!
(Doorbell rings)
Dina: I’ll get it. (opens the door and find Ahmed). Ahmed!! What are you doing here?
Ahmed: I just got your text and I was around and I thought to pass by.
Dina: Of course. Come on in.
Ahmed: Hey guys. What’s up?
Hossam (awkwardly): Nothing. Dina was just telling us that in every community there will be at least one gay, and that Darwain said that, or Darwin was gay himself. I don’t know exactly I wasn’t paying much attention.
Dina (angrily): HOSSAM!!
Karim (sarcastically): To be honest, Dina, you said a lot of things about Darwin and gays. I think Hossam got it exactly right.
Ahmed: Dina, Can I speak with you alone, outside?
Dina and Ahmed left the room together.
Hossam: That doesn’t seem good.
Karim: No it doesn’t, but at least they are going to sort some things out right now.
Hossam: Do you really believe that you are going to make life as fun as this apartment?
Karim: Yes, I do.
Hossam: do you know why this apartment is fun? It is because we do not live here. I do not know if you forgot, or if you pretending to forget, but the last time we were here we did something like that. We reached the conclusion that our lives were not perfect, so we decided to make changes. These very changes are the things we now want to change about our lives. I decided to take things to the net level with Dalia and marry her, Dina decided it was time to commit and stop messing around and you decided to break up with Amira and focus on your career. So, the conclusion is life will always be life and this apartment will always be an isolation room. We come here to forget about lives for a bit, but it cannot be our real lives.
Karim: I did not forget that. It is just these times I can’t help but think I made very wrong decisions in my life.
Hossam: You know what? We have been lied to our whole lives. People always describe decisions as going to gym vs eating pizza kind of decision. They tell you that each decision comes with sacrifices, but at the end of the day we all know that going to the gym is the right decision even if we cannot stand its sacrifices. But in real life, there is no right decision. The only universal truth is that you will regret whatever decision you make. When the decision is between career or family, choosing between your Christian girlfriend or your family, or whether to have kids or not, you will always miss the decision we did not make.
Few seconds of silence
Hossam: Do you know why I lighted these candles? In my honeymoon, we used to turn off all the lights and light only candles and just talk and have sex for hours. Now I cannot remember the last we were alone together. What is this you are holding?
Karim was holding a paper plane that was hanging around in the room in his hands.
Karim: when I decide to break up with Amira, I was thinking of excuses to tell her. I knew that she had to take care of her family, so she could not travel abroad. I told her that sometime in my life I would want to live abroad and start our family there, knowing that this would be a problem with her. She accused me of being selfish and she stormed off. Two days later, she sent me this paper plane, with a note saying “if necessary, I would travel with you to the end of the world.” I broke up with the following day.
Hossam: Why?
Karim: I was terrified.
Hossam: Of what?
Karim did not answer, and Dina entered the room alone. She did not say one word. She poured some coke on the table, and made three lines. They snorted them, looked at the ceiling and did not say anything till they passed out.