The magazine

Stylish

Mustafa stopped in front of the magazine building, took off his black sunglasses and stuck them to his shirt, rolled up the sleeve of his pink shirt and grabbed a bunch of papers pressed into a tightly closed plastic folder, making sure his black shoes were shining, looking back at the large painting hanging on the building, smiling as he climbed the entrance steps His steps were like short jovial hops, his smooth black hair played with his leaps on the stairs like the waves of a roaring sea.
Before entering through the main door, he met Mona. He looked at her slender body, her flat back as if it had come out from under a heavy iron, and her small, swaying breast. He felt something towards this young woman that he could not explain. Sometimes he thought he loved her, and he fell in love with her, and at other times he thought She looks at him recklessly, no one fills her eyes, arrogant, makes him constantly nervous when he glimpses arrogance in her eyes, his overwhelming love for her turns into a furious hatred for her.
She caught a glimpse of him approaching the main door of the magazine, she liked his elegance and considered him the most elegant young man in the magazine, and although he is of middle class, he insists on wearing shirts and pants of well-known and famous brands, I was very surprised how a young man like him could buy such expensive clothes, she did not find an answer to her question But neither did any of his colleagues or friends notice that his shoes did not match the luxury of his clothes.
Her smile widened when she saw him, she pointed to him greeting him, he stopped and a wide smile adorned his face, he took slow steps towards her and extended his hand to shake hands, hands touched and his heart shuddered with a slight shudder, his eyes suffered from a slight blurring, she quietly withdrew her hand and opened her handbag, took out the magazine, opened it to the pages of her investigation I placed it in front of his eyes, his condition changed in less than a moment, the smile flew from his face, his heart shook with anger, his eyes caught fire with anger.
What do you mean by this short and cunning offer to investigate it? Do you want to calibrate him because his name was not written, even in initials, on an article, news, or investigation in this magazine, even though he preceded it by at least four or five years? All she wanted from him was a word of encouragement or a phrase of approval, or a look of pride shining in his eyes. She was not a co-worker but his neighbor. She lives in the same neighborhood and only two streets separate her house from his. She heard a lot about him before she joined the College of Mass Communication and considered him her role model.
She became his classmate in the same college, even if he preceded her by ranks and years. She followed his successes in journalism, which he spread about himself in the neighborhood. She was proud of him for being one of the sons of her neighborhood. After several years, she joined him to work with him in the same magazine. She discovered his journalistic truth, but it is a book that will change the course of history. He will reformulate humanity from the beginning and the new, he will give this generation and future generations an opportunity that previous generations did not have to live with his theories that will not only enter history but will become history itself, theories that will be taught in all stages of education, that will make Einstein's theory of relativity just a silly joke.
The pages of his expected book were shaking in his hand. He removed the issue of the magazine from in front of his face, drawing a sarcastic smile and indifference to what I wrote, but he certainly failed to do so.
*
Shweikar sat on the balcony of her apartment overlooking the Nile, sipping morning coffee. She lit a cigarette and looked at the Nile shining with the warm April sun. This view enchants her mind. For many years she has been living in this apartment in the Garden City neighborhood. Shawkat, her ex-officer husband, bought it after he sold everything he inherited. On the authority of his father and mother in his town in one of the villages of Al-Buhaira Governorate, to fulfill his beloved's request to live in an apartment on the Nile in this neighborhood, as she had wished since her childhood.
Shawkat took off his reading glasses and the newspaper plate and placed it on the table in front of him. He noticed the ashtray in front of her with four cigarette butts, and here is the fifth that will catch up with them soon, a record that does not match her age, which is close to sixty, nor her declared desire to quit smoking, but she retracted this. Since receiving the news of the death of her son, Rami, in one of the attacks on police ambushes, she did not expect that one day she would bury her son and her first-born in the dirt. A scene like this never crossed her imagination. Some believe that imagination runs away from reality, not realizing that imagination is mere An attempt to embellish the ugliness of reality, and that it is merely a way to sweeten the bitterness of life.
The shock was not easy for Shawkat, despite being a military man who served in the Egyptian army for years, and tasted the meaning and scourge of war. Many of his colleagues were martyred in the war to liberate Kuwait, and many were wounded. He entered the war with a heart that knew no fear. He wished for death, but he did not obtain it. The war ended and returned. Life returned to normal, but a large scar remained in his soul whenever he remembered his colleagues who died in the hot oil land.
He met her in a chance meeting at Al-Jazira Club. He was never a member of this ancient club. Despite his name, which suggests his belonging to a high social class, he is in fact the son of a rural man who owns several acres. And he lived a rich rural life.
His life has completely transformed since seeing her, he was enchanted by her green eyes, her blond hair falling on two shoulders of alabaster, a delicious cylindrical neck that tempts you to kiss him, and Nahid's chest like two mortar cannons. She is beautiful in his eyes and in the eyes of everyone who saw her. He sold all his inheritance from his father and mother to settle and live in Cairo and cut off his connection to the lake completely, but Ramy's death broke something inside him, something he thought he owned, he lost his happiness and the joy of life. In her presence, he is a butterfly fluttering in a lush garden of flowers, her eyes are two flowers, and her lips are two flowers of different color, taste and smell, and everything in it is a flower, rose and chrysanthemum that gives meaning and spirit to his life, but she herself lost her soul after the death of her son, so how can she give his life any meaning or throw away them in any shade.
Shweikar paid attention to his voice as he gently admonished her:
- All these cigarettes in the morning, Shushu.. Isn't it too much, my love?!
- No, not much.. You didn't tell me what we are going to do in a noble matter?
Rami's ghost returned hovering around them, mentioning the name of his brother, whose presence they did not feel, Rami's presence and acceptance overwhelmed him, so that Nabil was nothing visible in relation to his family's surroundings, he was not in the shadow of Shweikar and Shawkat, but he was in the blind area that they did not see or feel him at all launch.
His mother became pregnant five years after she was born to Rami. A new member joined the family, but Rami remained their only son. No one knows any justification or explanation for this feeling. Even her breast refused to feed him and dried up before it was full and quenched the little one. Her attention was focused on Rami, giving him all the care and attention Perhaps because he looks a lot like her, his eyes are green like a field of clover, his hair is soft, blond, fluffed and rearranged at the same time, his love for equestrianism he inherited from his maternal grandfather Ismat al-Banduqdari Pasha, one of the symbols of the defunct monarchy in Egypt and the authentic Turkish extension of a family whose blood traces back to Anatolia and lives and breathes in Wadi The Nile, his luxurious voice, reminds her of her grandfather, Numan Pasha Al-Banduqdari, one of the generals of the Egyptian army during the reign of King Fouad I. She lived her childhood in his palace in Manial. She remembers well his strong, melodious voice that could infiltrate your heart or roar, shaking the ground beneath you and destroying you.