The Way of the World [Diana] [Vieri]
Posted May 31, 2018 17:44:33 GMT -7
Post by Saad al-Enezi on May 31, 2018 17:44:33 GMT -7
He wandered the streets he had known since he was a boy, and for the first time he felt like a stranger in a strange land.
The streets of Cairo were no mystery to Saad al-Enezi; from a young age he had known every bend, every nook, and every hidden crevice of the place he called home. He knew the city by its smells- where the traders from India brought the best spices and where the merchants from Yemen brought the highest quality coffee; he knew it by its texture, where the newer roads were smooth and slowly morphed into older roads well traveled and worn. It didn't matter that Cairo was one of the largest and most important cities in the world, and had been for many thousands of years, always growing and changing, as diverse as the many different people who called it home. It was still as familiar to Saad as his own back hand... at least it had been before.
Now it felt foreign, alien, unwelcoming.
It wasn't the city itself that had changed, though. It was him. He had battled an intense, almost debilitating headache the past week, and he often felt lightheaded and disoriented. He struggled to articulate the particulars of his current condition, but all he could really express was that his body felt out of place with the space around him. He had heard stories of sailors becoming ill at sea by the constant rocking of the waves against a ship, and this felt a little something like that, although it was in no way constant and completely unpredictable. But the same principle applied- for the past week it felt like there was some major disconnect between his brain, his body parts, and the physical world around him. Things seemed distorted in a way- building squeezed together at awkward angles, or alleyways stretched like some evil spirit had wrapped a hand around both parts and pulled as hard as he could.
It was almost like being drunk, even low Saad was as sober as a baby. Just yesterday he went to step off a curb and into the street when he realized he misjudged the gap, and watched amazed as the space between the curb and the street seemed to expand as his foot tried to make contact with the ground. It wasn't only proportions and angles that were wrong. In some part of his brain, he felt like he could see a layer of reality above and on top of the physical world around him. It stretched out endlessly around him, straight and thin green lines that touched every physical thing, painting a map in his brain that conflicted with and distorted the information his eyes were providing him. A part of his mind knew that what he was experiencing in his brain was also affecting the world around him, but his inability to explain what was happening mixed with the constant throbbing in his head obfuscated the truth of the situation to him.
Whatever was going on, he prayed to any gods that might be listening for relief, and for it to come quickly. A thief needed to be sure footed, fast, and agile, and in his current state he was none of those things. And he was starting to get hungry. He hadn't pocketed any coin or anything worth trading in three or four days now, and the rations he had saved for himself had run out. He needed to find some way to feed himself, or he felt like he might starve. The streets of Cairo were packed... they always were. Maybe he would bump into someone hard enough to make them drop their coin purse and not notice. Or maybe he'd be able to pickpocket off of an old man too feeble to notice Saad's clumsy hands rattling around in his pockets.
Whatever he planned to do, he needed to do it soon... he couldn't stand another hungry night.
The streets of Cairo were no mystery to Saad al-Enezi; from a young age he had known every bend, every nook, and every hidden crevice of the place he called home. He knew the city by its smells- where the traders from India brought the best spices and where the merchants from Yemen brought the highest quality coffee; he knew it by its texture, where the newer roads were smooth and slowly morphed into older roads well traveled and worn. It didn't matter that Cairo was one of the largest and most important cities in the world, and had been for many thousands of years, always growing and changing, as diverse as the many different people who called it home. It was still as familiar to Saad as his own back hand... at least it had been before.
Now it felt foreign, alien, unwelcoming.
It wasn't the city itself that had changed, though. It was him. He had battled an intense, almost debilitating headache the past week, and he often felt lightheaded and disoriented. He struggled to articulate the particulars of his current condition, but all he could really express was that his body felt out of place with the space around him. He had heard stories of sailors becoming ill at sea by the constant rocking of the waves against a ship, and this felt a little something like that, although it was in no way constant and completely unpredictable. But the same principle applied- for the past week it felt like there was some major disconnect between his brain, his body parts, and the physical world around him. Things seemed distorted in a way- building squeezed together at awkward angles, or alleyways stretched like some evil spirit had wrapped a hand around both parts and pulled as hard as he could.
It was almost like being drunk, even low Saad was as sober as a baby. Just yesterday he went to step off a curb and into the street when he realized he misjudged the gap, and watched amazed as the space between the curb and the street seemed to expand as his foot tried to make contact with the ground. It wasn't only proportions and angles that were wrong. In some part of his brain, he felt like he could see a layer of reality above and on top of the physical world around him. It stretched out endlessly around him, straight and thin green lines that touched every physical thing, painting a map in his brain that conflicted with and distorted the information his eyes were providing him. A part of his mind knew that what he was experiencing in his brain was also affecting the world around him, but his inability to explain what was happening mixed with the constant throbbing in his head obfuscated the truth of the situation to him.
Whatever was going on, he prayed to any gods that might be listening for relief, and for it to come quickly. A thief needed to be sure footed, fast, and agile, and in his current state he was none of those things. And he was starting to get hungry. He hadn't pocketed any coin or anything worth trading in three or four days now, and the rations he had saved for himself had run out. He needed to find some way to feed himself, or he felt like he might starve. The streets of Cairo were packed... they always were. Maybe he would bump into someone hard enough to make them drop their coin purse and not notice. Or maybe he'd be able to pickpocket off of an old man too feeble to notice Saad's clumsy hands rattling around in his pockets.
Whatever he planned to do, he needed to do it soon... he couldn't stand another hungry night.