Until Next Feast

by SeifEldeen Kamal

Is it morning yet?

It will be soon. It must.

Then there would be only celebration: colored lights and merchandise stores competing with each other’s loud music launched at the wondering eyes of the Walking-eaters pedestrians. Children would be zigzagging between the legs of the pedestrians like a school of fish navigating between the immersed Greek columns beneath the Mediterranean coast of Alexandria.

Others would be floating on bicycles with wheels decorated with corolla ribbons, the little riders wearing new clothes already stained by the remnants of Eid Ul-Fitr’s candies and mother’s homemade feast pastries. In their own world, the children would compare their received gifts and the new outfits their parents bought them. They would brag and show off the money they had received from their visiting relatives in compensation for smothery wet kisses their little cheeks endured.

Boys would spend their first obtainment of money on cheap pocket wallets to keep their mint condition money of small notes in it mimicking their fathers and uncles. The less fortunate would resort to a barrel-bank figurine to keep coins in.

Is it morning yet? thought the olive skin figure, half dangling off her bed, frequently inspecting and rechecking the new shoes beneath awaiting to serve her feet.

It is the sun… he must be somebody’s older brother. Is he lazy or just loves to keep me waiting?

Maalish, a thought of never mind crossed her mind. He is bound to rise, and when he does, he will seal the last night of Ramadan. The sun would have no choice but to declare the end of the fasting month and gives permission to start the chaotic festivity. The little olive skin girl’s thought slipped out of her fingertips like a string of runaway kite. She no longer knows whether she was mad with the late to rise sun or her older teasing brother. It is the last night of the fasting month, almost every family stays up all night, some from hunger and others busy satisfying a hunger. At this moment, it makes no difference to her, they are both alike. Her patience is consumed.

Unlike other children of her age and gender, the little girl didn’t stay up with her mother’s baking-party ladies preparing food and the pastry for the feast. She preferred to be close to her new shoes. The new clothes, the little lady-like vinyl handbag, and the hair ornaments she had received, all were made to serve and reflect her mother’s wishes and selection. But none seized the little girl’s attention like the one under her bed.

The shoes are so special to her. They are what she wanted, and she was not stingy in spending of her two assets of acquisition to get them: threat and empathy. She supplied enough screams and tantrums to deliver the first and shed enough tears to draw the second. Her method was effective enough to convert her main obstacle into a puppet. Her mother, tangled in the web of tears spilled from the little brown eyes drowning the long black eye lashes of a five year old girl, she surrendered to her daughter. The little one had the trophy under the bed to prove it.

Soon, daylight would bring about the news of her triumph, not as much over her disciplinary mother, but to demonstrate her verve over her three brothers and all kids who have no vote in choosing their presents, and have no say in how they dress.

To the citizens of her own world—her little cousins, friends, and the neighbors’ kids—she would show off the trophy, a new pair of shoes of her own choice to serve her little feet. Her pride would be reflected from the envious little eyes of those who inhabit her own world.

She would kneel, later, and pray: “Thank you Allah for Eid Ul-Fitr.” Then, she would prepare for the next feast.