"Don't look at me like that. I'm only human"

Reading eyes if fun, and sometimes scary... very scary. You can see all sorts of expressions; dislike from the girl that is now smiling at you, indifference from the person you somewhat care about, jealousy from a person who has much more than you, the "undressing eyes" of a guy who you suspect to be into you, watching you as a predator watches his pray. There is also another look, one that you will not see that often, and if you do, know that it will be sending chills down your spine even years after you were supposed to have forgotten it. It is the expression of an infant looking at his mother, recognizing no one in the world but her. When you're not a mother yet and it is not your baby that is looking at you that way, it is, oh believe me, more than creepy. 

Being called to the blackboard to answer a question was not one of the things I looked forward to in school. No-no, it wasn't because I didn't know the answer. In fact, I was one of the top students in my class. It wasn't standing in front of the whole class and being the focus point of twenty-four peers. It was that very look. 

It's probably different now in schools; many years have passed and the Russian schooling system is very different than that of North America. In our school, the best students were seated at the back of the class, with the more challenging and noisy ones in the front. We sat in pairs, usually two friends together. A major part of our assessment was in-class participation and oral tests and assignments. It was guaranteed that you would be standing in front of the class at least once a week to answer something, or not answer it. For me, it was a guaranteed 5 minutes of being creeped the hell out. 

The whole class sat in silence. Some wrote things down, others read messages passed from their friend from across the class and the rest waited for the answer. At the back of the class, in an awkward position, as though stuck somewhere midway between standing up and sitting, stood a young boy, with a smile of admiration on his face.

It was top gossip when it started three years prior to that. People would stare at him, then at me, then at him again. There were whispers and giggles, and I was embarrassed like never before. It's funny how people lose interest in something when it becomes abundant. So did my classmates. They lost interest in any of this business when they realized that he was not going to stop, nor make a move. 

I remember him coming to my house one time. I probably should have not opened the door, but I did. I let him in. He didn't say one word that day. He just stood there, awkwardly staring at me with his pale blue eyes, almost shining with admiration. I thought he would cry that day. Maybe not. 

But to me, he was just a friend. Why I didn't like him back? Maybe because it wasn't meant to be. Maybe because he was just a friend... Or maybe because he looked at me with those eyes, with that expression. He looked at me as though I was a God... and nobody wants to be a God. No. Not me.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

Bits and pieces from lives of those that matter most. Mom.

Egypt Symphonies, played by Three Saif Orchestra.

2:10am. Something tells me I should be sleeping now.

I am a rebel by nature—or at least I like to believe that sometimes—and, therefore, I’m going to dive into the past, instead of doing what is, most probably, best for me. No sleep, not now.

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All fathers hate loud noises; it’s a fact of life. The explanation for this is rather simple. According to my personal psychoanalysis of my father and my profound theories, it all goes back to their loss of privacy and personal life after we, the cute chubby babies, were born. Loud noises, and in particular yelling of any sort, trigger a defence mechanism, which is in turn fuelled by “Fear of The Past.” This defence mechanism is manifested in any and all attempts to stop the loud noise, from leaving the room to yelling at the source of noise (aka you.)

I’m a loud person, and if I scream, whether it is because I’m excited or my brother just took my toy, my dad loses it. It’s usually one word that brings me back to a normal tone: “Tiho!”

Now imagine what happens when three youngsters are screaming the place down. Two girls and one boy. Two high pitches and a tenor. The symphony of madness.

It happened during a summer in Egypt. Why we didn’t go to Russia that summer is a story for another time, but as for now, this is what you need to know: my sister has never been to Egypt, I like chocolate, my brother is handsome, and the three of us are equally terrified of cockroaches.

Finding an apartment to rent for a month is not an easy task, I understand, and my father’s friends failed at it completely. How we ended up in that apartment remains a mystery to me. All I remember are the thin alleys the car squeezed through until, eventually, it reached an old apartment-building in a not-so-clean neighbourhood. Everything about our “move-in” was sketchy; handing us the keys, the loud blast and gush of fire when they tried to show us how to light up (literally) the water heater in the bathroom, the fake smiles and their quick departure.

There were three bedrooms, two of which were equipped with ACs. One room will never be used, and it is not the one without the AC. Actually, I take that back—it will be used, but not by us. A decent washroom, or at least we thought so, a nice kitchen, a spacious living room. The apartment was big, alright... but we weren’t the only ones in it.

That was our first night in Egypt that summer. For my sister, my brother and me, it was the last night any of us went into the kitchen alone, felt safe while on the toilet, didn’t stare around while in the shower, walked confidently in the hallway and thought of nothing in particular. For my father, it was the last night of peace. It was the beginning of his nightmares.

***

We were peaking out of the most dangerous room.

If you haven’t guessed it by now, the apartment was inhabited by cockroaches. Huge ones! Fast and sneaky ones! They were the size of dates... or... or my thumb! Huge and gross! With long legs and antennae the size of their bodies! And the terrifying thing: they could fly.

*Shrugs in disgust and looks around*

So, why was that room the “most dangerous” one? The location of the room was perfect for their migration, as it was right across from the washroom. Moreover, we switched on the AC in that room on our first night, so it became a reverse sauna for them. They would run out to cool off in the nice temperature and then go back to their homes, located inside the cracks by the washroom door.

That night, we felt brave. I must admit, I felt more brave only because of the following:

1) We spent a decent amount of money on insecticides (cockroachicides, if there was a such thing) and it was sprayed and poured in every corner of the apartment.

2) Every time I would see a cockroach, I would scream like there was no tomorrow. Same applied to my sister and brother. My dad’s response: yell at us for yelling and go spraying the chemicals and chasing the giants down with his shoes as weapons. My dad spent the whole month killing at least three a day, and those were the good days, the quiet days. We felt proud watching how skilful he became with every passing day.

So we stood there in that room, watching the bathroom. For a moment, there was nothing exciting, but then a huge, dark brown hairy blob emerged from under the door. He slowly walked up, arrogantly defying us and even gravity, and then crawled back into the washroom from the side. That same moment, another cockroach emerged from the top of the door.

“It’s the same one,” my sister argued.

“No, it can’t be! It couldn’t cross that whole distance that fast!” my brother argued.

“Well, technically, if it ran...”

And, as we let our guard down, the bastard jumped down, spreading its ugly wings, and flew towards us.

That was the climax of our Egypt No. 2006 Symphony. We jumped back, stumbling over each other, and ran away into the dark room. My brother was the first to land on the bed, my sister was right behind him, and I was the last. Looking back, I see no sense in us jumping on that bed, or trying to pull one another to cover up from the vicious attack, for that matter. That was also the peak of selfishness: “Land on them, not me!”

“TIHO!”

We did shut up. But not because we were scared of our dad, but because the cockroach landed on the wall by the door, where dad was now standing, furious.

“What are people going to say? What are they going to think, huh?! Screaming every night! It’s one at night and you’re—”

But we weren’t listening. We were focusing on the cockroach and on pulling each other for cover. Then, suddenly, the cockroach started flying again.

We forgot about the lecture on public perception of loud noises and started screaming. My first reaction, mainly because I was closest to the cockroach, was to run for it. Run! And so I stormed out, pushing my raging father out of the way, followed by the rest of the orchestra.

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4:11am. Sleep. I just wish I won’t dream of cockroaches.

P.S. For everyone’s information: Egypt is an amazing country, as long as you know where to stay, well in advance.