Blonde Ivory

Number Thirty-Five: h.m.s.

Hayden Sterling

Diary Entry #9

Date: January 24th

Hello Journal, how have these past two weeks been for you? Hopefully better than mine. I don't really know what I was expecting when I arrived in Egypt. I guess I was hoping I could just march over to Abbassia, find my mother waiting in a room with all of her things packed, and when I introduced myself, she would jump up from her bed, and we'd be on our merry way back to America. That was sort of how I planned it out. I was relying on things going that smoothly.

Would you be surprised if I told you that things didn't go like that at all? Of course not. Even though you're just a simple notebook, you probably still have more common sense than I do. My head seems to always be in the clouds. I have no footing in reality. I never base any of my plans or expectations on realism. I always expect some crazy fantasy, and when things aren't like a fairytale, I get hurt. I'm like a whiny child.

I remember that going over to Abbassia was quite easy because the people I asked for help seemed to understand English pretty well despite it not being their first language. They pointed me in the general direction of the building, and it didn't take me long to arrive. Walking in and asking where I could find Bastet Essam was pretty easy too.

The receptionist who was adorned in a dark blue hijab raised an eyebrow at my question though. I took that as a queue that my mother didn't get very many visitors if any at all. To come off as an innocent girl just looking for a visit with her mother, I also felt the need to explain who I was.

"My name's Hayden. I'm Bastet's daughter. From America... I moved there with my father when I was young..." I thought that listing facts to the receptionist would do the trick. Now that I'm thinking back on it, I probably just seemed like a stupid kid. That bold statement is not far from the truth.

It was even easier from there. She asked someone to guide me to where my mother spends most of her time. Another woman with a black hijab guided me down two narrow hallways before she stopped in front of a plain door without so much as a sliver of a window. She didn't bother to knock before she pushed the door open and allowed me to enter. When I walked in, she shut the door behind me. That was the last easy step. The rest was hard.

Seeing my mother staring up at the ceiling as if she hadn't even registered the commotion of me walking in was hard. The mental picture I had of her was nothing like the real her. The hair she had was matted to one side while the rest of her scalp was bald aside from stray wispy pieces. Her skin was pale, yellowy, and sticky-looking. It was if the lights above her had bleached and semi-melted her skin. Her fingers were more active by her side than any part of her body. Blinking seemed to be a rare occurrence for her.

I made my way over to her in slow steps; half expecting her to jump up and attack me like a demon in a horror film. Only she didn't. By the time I made it to the chair by her bed, she hadn't moved an inch. Her eyes didn't even move in interest to see who had entered her room. I thought that speaking would jut her into reality, but I also thought that my voice would be shocking. In a room so silent, the sound of my shoes padding on the floor was intrusive. I can't imagine my voice sounding more inviting.

I decided to speak up. I sat down in the chair and reached for her fingers that had spasms every five seconds. When I interlocked our hands, her fingers twitched continuously against mine. Her features remained stagnant.

"Hello, Bastet," My voice slightly above a whisper, "my name is Hayden. You probably won't remember who I am... But you might remember my father: Campbell Sterling." Like in a horror film, I expected her to scream and try to rip my arm off. None of that happened. In fact, nothing happened. She did nothing. She blinked a few times, but that was it.