Gears of Fate
Little Hamad is in the passenger seat of an outing with dad…
Little Hamad does not care where himself and dad should end up… dad knows everything!
Dad stops the car somewhere to say hello to a friend of his…
Dad’s friend bends down to get a look at Little Hamad.
He then looks back at dad and says…
Dad’s Friend: Mino hatha?
Dad: Hatha el bash mohandes 7amad!
Dad’s Friend: Hatha el mohandes?
*Little Hamad notices a sparkle in dad’s eye, and a smile in dad’s heart*
*Little Hamad becomes a little shy*
Dad’s Friend: ee ya7laila.
Bash mohandes… Little Hamad forgets not the two words that made his dad’s eye glitter, and his heart smile.
—-
My father has always talked highly of engineers and engineering.
I’ve always wondered why and my closest answer is metaphorical at best… but this does not mean it is not important…
My years of studying under engineers and professors of engineering have always been accompanied by the constant posing of this same question…
What is it to engineer?
And each professor would give an entirely different answer… leaving me with more data to brush through.
Until one very interesting professor came along and gave me a very simple answer to a very difficult question.
He is a man of the military and lectures us in uniform. His classes were somewhat odd, as he presented a very military-like essence to the student-teacher relationship. Though, I must admit, I was very fond of this strict fairness.
He lectured us on Fluid Mechanics and his military career had a lot to do with the aerodynamics of military aircrafts.
An engineer is, quite simply put, your little brother that keeps asking you annoying questions that you would think an answer hardly exists to. Specifically when that question begins with the term “Why.”
In my case, I was the annoying little brother that got told “La tes2al as2ela ’3abeyya!” for the most part. But of all my family members, the person that never turned me away was my father. Patience. Persistence. He would go to strange lengths, based on my now mature sense, just to give me my answer. And if the question was impossible to answer, he would ask me what my thoughts on the matter were.
Why…
To engineer my father…
I gave him input… he gave me output….
Is my father an engineer too?
Did he ask questions when he was younger? Why didn’t he, like my family members, get annoyed with my constant asking of questions?
By my professor’s definition, I certainly am an engineer.
And yet, what meaning should I derive from this?
By his very own definition, my brothers and sisters were suppressing the engineer within me, whilst my dad was bringing it forward…
Was my father aware of this?
Of all the problems I am to solve under the discipline of gears… knowing the dimensions of my father… are indeed the hardest.
—-
Artwork: Vladstudio
Bound
Mum takes Little Hamad to Yowm Al-Ba77ar…
The place where other little kids were always happy… laughing… and free.
As usual as ever…
Little Hamad knows very well… mum expects him to eat before he can wander off and play like all the other little kids…
And so there he was…
Eating unhurriedly… Little Hamad waltzes around… eating… but not straying too far from mum…
He finds himself slowly being taken away by the music being played in the background…
Little Hamad might not have realized it… but he was dancing his little feet and little hips… with an unfinished hotdog in his little hands…
Slowly turning to see his mother… completely oblivious… he notices his mother looking at him and smiling… and… another lady sitting next to her… also smiling…
Little Hamad’s little rosey cheeks turned rosier than ever…
Little Hamad stops doing his little dance… this lady and mum were now talking and laughing…
She also had little kids of her own…
—-
Mothers…
I may not have paid much attention to it then…
But I now realize… that mothers are probably the likeliest strangers to communicate pretty well…
I was the reason that lady and my own mother were talking… laughing… and if they were ever lonely… at that moment… they were anything but.
I wonder what it is that mothers feel… I’m pretty sure it’s just the one feeling for their children that they all seem to communicate through… on an energetic or spiritual level if not an actual or physical sense…
Mothers…
I wonder if that one feeling… is the same factor that makes their patience… tolerance… and energy seem so boundless… so limitless… so infinite…
Has she passed it on to me? and left me to fulfill my purpose with it?
I wonder…
—-
Artwork: Vladstudio
Confliction
Little Hamad went to his little class… sat on his little chair… among his little friends…
Waited for the big teacher…
The big teacher walks in… wearing his big traditional clothing… sits in his big chair…
Pulls out papers and puts them on his big table…
The teacher starts handing out the graded exam papers from the day before…
Little Hamad’s name is called!
He runs to the teacher to receive his paper!
*Little Hamad is shocked… the grade is awful…*
He confronts his teacher…
Little did Little Hamad know of the response he was about to receive from his big teacher…
Big Teacher: “la et6ale3 ellee a7san minnik! 6aale3 ellee aqal minnik o gool 7emdellah.”
*Little Hamad goes silent…*
He musters, wrestles, and tackles his own thoughts as he tries to think of something to say…
But Little Hamad cannot respond to something he does not understand…
Little Hamad goes home…
Greeted and embraced by the secure arms of his mum… where everything is logical… and all mindlessness is forced into exile…
Mum: “Where’s your exam paper young man?”
*Little Hamad shows his mum the paper…*
Mum: “What on earth is this?”
Little Hamad: “Mum it’s okay… a lot of the others got lower grades!”
*Smack*
Little Hamad is struck by his mum…
*Little Hamad is confused*
Little tears begin flowing down his little cheeks…
Mum: “You’re not better than anyone else, and no one else is better than you are! Don’t you dare forget that!”
Little Hamad cries his tears and confusions away…
—-
Artwork: Vladstudio
The Sky
There he was… a little kid… staring out the car window… up at the blue sky…
And yet… there is something more… more than the endless blue and the white clouds…
He sees them… white tiny particles… billions of them… they’re incredibly fast…
He watches them for so long… focusing on a single particle and watching it split into four…
His focus then shifts onto one of the the new particles… it joins another particle… and then splits into four again…
He’s filled with joy at this seemingly chaotic dance…
He endlessly pokes his older brother and tells him to look at the sky and see the white particles!
Older Brother: Maynoon ent.
*Little Hamad is confused*
Little Hamad: Matshoofhom?
Older Brother: La2. 3ala balek mo 9a7i methlek?
*Little Hamad is crushed by his older brother’s harsh dismissal…*
Little Hamad tells no one else about the white particles in the sky…
-
Photography: TSVN
Awake
10:30 AM, and I’m drowning in sweet slumber.
The faint voice of the housekeeper calling my name from behind my bedroom door… easily awakens me.
I move with a trained haste… and open the door of enlightenment.
I am informed that, outside, exists a man asking for my father…
The magnitude of value to each component of the situation troubles me for a reason that I cannot fathom within the time frame…
I am driven, unknowing of the consequences, as the mere mentioning of my father instills me with fear. A fear of error on my part… fear of disappointing my father…
All my priorities fall and scatter to a now more superior, ultimate cause…
My one objective… is to confront the man outside… the man seeking an audience with my father…
I head to the main door… the door of oblivion… with utmost determination… and relentlessness…
My body, though impaired and dizzy from slumber, strives and arrives at its destiny…
As I open the door of oblivion, the light from the outside world bursts through, and for a brief moment, blinds me completely…
The light of oblivion burns through my eyes… and I am barely able to set sight upon the man I am to confront…
But my fear reminds me that I have nothing to gain… and everything to lose by cowering away from this moment…
My eyes adjust… his appearance becomes clear…
A man indeed… scruffy and heavy… thick glasses…
His arms hanging at his sides, slightly to the rear… his stature… somewhat slanted to a bend… the man is by nature careless… and heartless… my situation looks dire… grim… and more uncertain…
I approach him with extreme caution… and initiate the conversation of absolution…
Hamad: Mino?
Man: 3indkon 7adeed lelbai3?
Hamad: La2.
The man leaves… and with him… my slumber.
-
Artwork: Jamonit
