I wandered around downtown Cairo, loitered on the corner of Sheikh Rihan and Qasr al-Aini, reclined on some steps overlooking the intersection, empty save for a scattering of cars and the late night traffic cop at his post, waving cars through in purely symbolic gestures.

two things occurred to me:

every moment of my continued existence, and time's indiscriminate irreverence, were an atrocity committed against grief


the breeze, which occasionally worked itself up into a wind, was murderous.