More than anything, what binds people here to one another here is the pointless struggle for quality of life.

But sometimes, late at night, in bed with the lights off, he used to ask me quietly what it was like “outside.” That’s how he talked about the rest of the world—“outside,” as though this country were a broom closet, as though I were a fish-eye peephole.

QUESTION: If an Egyptian cannot speak English, who is telling his story? ________________________________

Somewhere in Shobrakheit, my mother is dividing all the dinner fruits in half.

How to say consumerism in Arabic? How to say toxins, microplastics, mutagenics, fair trade, ethical sourcing?

People used to speak to me so carefully and now they disappear me instead.

For days after my grandmother cooked herself to death, Mother didn’t say it, but we knew anyway that she was sour from thinking: Shame to waste the gas and not eat.

Only now, looking back, do I realize how terrible it is to subsist on just enough, without the joy of beautiful things.

I am outside of my context, confused about where the margins and the pressure points are. Who has the power? Where is the center?