Reham Mahgoub

We start our journey

The numbers are slowly descending

5, 4, 3, 2 … and

Then we are OUT.

Slammed by the late October wind.

Without a jacket, I shiver.

I look and sound like a walking rattle

The sight of nature is very soothing.

I stand and look at the water,

The way it glimmers in the s…

WAIT where is the sun?

So many clouds stand in the sky

Moving slowly west from where I am standing

Oh that one looks like a baby...

This one like a very cute panda…

And this one looks like… a cloud?

Wow, the cold must be getting to me and

To these little poor plants.

Some of them stand yellow and swaying in the mini desert of the park

Others look so red, green, pink…

So lively.

The sight instantly warms me.

Again I turn for the water.

I look up and realization smacks me.

Down west, the buildings are beautiful

Half of the tall building is red,

The other is shiny.

The red will be unveiled a year later and will reveal the sugar coating of New York

The tourist trap,

The ultimate utopia, but only at first sight.

The luring to the cage.

The water under me slams me out of this paradise, but…

Had I known better I wouldn’t have looked down east,

But I hadn’t known better and so I looked down east and stared and… stood there in disbelief.

Let’s just say, it wasn’t quiet Disney land.

My hopes and dreams were stepped on and vaporized.

There stood a factory, the repulsive source of pollution for the city known as New York

With the words “bones” and “jones” tattooed on the side, the buildings stand slanted, forlorn, left for the ages to dump.

I take notes on this loose leaf paper supported by this yellow folder. Not surprised honestly, because everything nowadays needs support.

And then people next to me talk in Chinese and a woman walks by ranting in Spanish.

The diversity of the languages…

Amazing

Another woman walks by apparently let down and expresses how much she would really like it if she can help people….

More specifically help them control their anger.

YES!!

The lady in the weird outfit summed up the mystery.

That’s what this world is:

A ginormous, dense ball of anger, rage

Floating in a universe of nothing, absolutely nothing

Just paralyzing empty space and like every place inhabited,

There is a big black hole that sucks the people with hopes and dreams,

The people who aim for that shiny building,

The people who actually know what their purpose is in life,

But that black hole lets go of the people who have the ability to flash a dollar in its hole,

The people who have a plan for world domination and then keeping it to themselves

Solely to themselves.

A lady runs by.

How fascinating to see massive pollution on one side of the river and on the other side, people are running, exercising, keeping their shape.

Just then, it struck me.

Miss. Universe detective was on to a something

These people seemed to be running to something, an ultimate destination.

But, sadly as I watched another person run by and another one following,

I sensed that although some were running to something,

Many were mainly running from something,

Something grand

Why would they run?

New York is a heavenly Utopia.

And then the black hole struck me and I shouted,

Run!!!