Za2ir al Layl

He has the guts to show up again! After all these years, after all the explanation I gave to myself for his existence in this world, after doing my best to forget his name, he's here! And for the second time this week!

Standing there with his straight emotionless face, at my door, same face I used to see and swear to everyone that he's smiling at me. Oh God, I forgot how much I hate him now. But his presence brings back bunch of memories, sweet and bitter, that I do treasure.

I don't remember how we first met but I'm sure it was in my grandma's house when I was very young, maybe 5 years old or even younger. I never liked him and my grandma used to tell me "Just ignore him. Forget he's there"

All mischief happens when he's around. I remember once I was very annoyed for his presence and I decided to raise the broom to scare him and since the broom stick was taller than me, as well as my young sister, it fell on her head and she was taken to the ER and she came home with couple of stitches in her head. She always blames ME for that and not him! Not even once!

And there he is standing as high as the door, pretending he's cool. But I swear I saw him breathing fast and could count his heartbeats. I was told once that he senses other's heartbeats and knows if people are intimidated by him. So whenever I see him
I do my best not to show my pulse has reached over 150 bpm.

After all these years, I forgot how much I hate him. I remember when I was a teenager; he "accidentally" came in to family bathroom when I was there. I kept screaming and shouting at him. And later thanked God that my bathroom was fixed ASAP so I won't have to go to the family bathroom and remember this embarrassing experience.

Today, standing in the flesh, facing me with his ever known rudeness, in no doubt of the feelings I had for him, and certain that today I despise him more than ever and hated the sound of his name, staring at me without a blink. I gaze at him telling myself "I'm strong enough to face him. He's nothing. I'll survive this moment and will brag about it later" which I'm not sure of right now.

I decided to act like him. He stares, I stare back. He says nothing, I say nothing too. He pretends to ignore me. I pretend to ignore him too. He stands there silently; I'm silent still… until I came to my senses and remembered I'm all by myself and the last thing on earth I would want is to be with him in the same room with no one else around. All my fears for this moment were what if he steps in?

I was working on a piece of art, using a trimmer and wooden tools, my hand grabbed the nearest scalpel. Yes, I used scalpels and I have many sizes. Holding the scalpel in my hands, raised it to make sure he'll notice it I said with a firm voice "addamorrak, agga6i3ak, ashari7ak… etha tfakir tidkhul" (I'll destroy you, cut you into pieces, and dissect you… if you think of coming in).

To tell you the truth, I'm not sure if he understood a word but I'm sure these words were enough to alarm him and that's how he decided to wait until I was not looking at him so he can escape from the opening between the ceiling and the door and save face. Lizards!

After I graduated from the 4th grade, during the summer when I had a very long curly hair, I used to tie my pony tail really high so the hair won't touch my neck. I was playing at our neighbors' garden with my sister and their two daughters. Their two young men cousins where staying with them so they were in the garden to witness the scene. The girls and I were playing with dolls and I felt my hair was on my arm. It ticked me so I pulled my hair to the other side. Something was still there and that's when I started shouting and running, followed by the girls, all hurrying towards my house and some other kids from the street started running with us.

I went in to my mom, crying and telling her: "I looked at him while he was standing on my arm… I moved my arm… he looked at me... He ran towards my hand… then looked left and right as if he's crossing a street and then went to the finger in the middle and jumped to the porch". He was very tiny that you may see his guts through his pink skin. That summer I was no longer the girl with the long hair.

In the year 2000, I moved to bigger room which had a bigger window the only door to the backyard garden that was known as Attawie's garden. I was very excited about having a bigger room and a garden for myself. I kept dreaming about making it something like "7adeeqat Ommi" (my mother's garden) the one I used to see in Sandy Bell cartoon. All my dreams went in vain with the first visit paid by a huge gigantic lizard. The door was locked ever since and was covered from all sides with sponge and wood.

My mother is a real Lizard-buster. Even neighbors used to call her to help them with such situation. She has a broom stick that she used only for the purpose of killing this creature, in addition to a sort of pest control gun with a formula called "nogoss" (if that's the right spelling). He was able to hi that huge lizard but it wasn't enough to kill him. But he disappeared. After about a month he appeared in my sister's room with two tails! He started to appear several times here and there and no one could catch him. We started calling him "abu thailain" (the one with two tails)

Then he paid me another visit and disappeared. I saw him leave the room but nobody outside the room saw him coming out. After a while a small lizard was about to enter my room and disappeared! I thought there must be a reason why lizards disappear next to my door. That's when I discovered that there was a missing piece of wood on the top of my door where lizard can get inside the door itself. We covered the place of the missing piece with a sticking tape as well as the whole of the lock. I left the door open for days until I could touch the handle. Eventually I forgot about it.
The next summer, I heard scratching sound and a weird screaming sound but not of a human. Then a wounded average-sized lizard came out followed by "abu thailain"! I left the room and things were taken care of by my mother and I don't even want to know the rest of the story.

That's all for now
And I hope I won't see a lizard again