The amazing story of the egyptian ghost who visited my home every night*

I´ve heard all kinds of fantastic stories about me over the years: places I´m supposed to have visited, people I´m supposed to have dated and even married, stuff I´m supposed to have done. There´s only a tiny detail to these stories: I´ve never visited,met,dated,married or done such places/people/things.

?!

Sense of humour is essential, of course, as well as compassion to understand how frustrated, empty handed and sad these story tellers must be. "I wish that person would get a life and stop imagining my own..." followed by a good laugh has slipped off my mouth way too many times in the last years. It got as bad - and crazy - as receiving the news of my own marriage to one of my bosses in Cairo when I was sitting with my real boyfriend during a rehearsal. We looked at each other and inquired: "did you know I was getting married?" None of us did.

 These stories are rarely spoken to my face because - oh, well...- they´re fiction and I have a strong impression the story tellers who spread "my" life episodes suspect (just suspect) they´re spreading plain bulshit.

Come on, girl! You´ve lived and worked for 7 years in the Crazy La La Land (aka Egypt) - why are you so surprised or even affected?!

I am. Right now. Go figure...

Exactly, dear Jude - exactly.

 An ex-boyfriend (a photographer who hates women and dancers, in particular, but lives off them) I had in Egypt called me a few days ago to tell me the following:

1. I was the best he had ever had (what does that even mean?!); despite the fact that he has a girlfriend, he would like to meet me again (he already reached me in Russia after years of blessed silence); he misses me.
All of this, knowing our story (the humiliations, beatings, murderer attempt - oh YES!), just makes me wonder how so many mad people are out there in the world, dangerously interacting with the rest of us.

2. He had finally forgiven me for stuff I´d never done (as if Jesus Christ himself had fallen over him) from which I pinpoint: prostitution. Yes, ladies and gentlemen. I thought this old, rusty, exhausted prostitution ghost was left where it (sadly) belongs: in Egypt. It´s known that dancers in Egypt are in fact seen by the great majority of people as prostitutes and I´ve dealt with that luggage with the same ease I dealt with all Egypt´s games: with indifference, doing my own thing in my own way. Let them think what they wish - we´re all entitled to some sort of ignorance, aren´t we?! - and keep doing what you do with dignity and pride. So I did.

What surprised me the most about this prostitution story was the amount of details still lingering inside that poor man´s head:

2.1. According to him, I had not only been a prostitute but a VERY smart one (thank you, sir!) who used one of my bosses as a pimp, husband and boyfriend (all at the same time, apparently...yes, I know...it´s confusing...I knocked my head on the wall a few times until I grasped the concept - move ahead, please!);

2.2. According to him, that same boss was seen visiting my home in Zamalek (the zone where I lived, right on the back of the Marriott hotel) night after night. Now...wowza, ladies and gentlemen. The show is about to start. This is where the story gets REALLY interesting.
 I was practically living with my boyfriend at the time (we were together 24 hours per day or very close to it) so it seems my boss/husband/boyfriend/pimp was visiting me but none of us - not me or my boyfriend - ever saw him.

Hmmmm..."Houston, I think we have a problem..."

Ghosts are something palpable and natural for me - this is not where the mystery resides. I´ve seen, touched and spoken with spirits (people who died but whose souls still hanged around between us). What strikes me as odd is that my boss (slash all that other nonsense) is not dead, at least he wasn´t at the time I lived in Zamalek. So...bite your nails off, Agatha Christie!
Here´s where I get intrigued: if he´s not dead, his ghost cannot visit me every night (explaining my lunatic ex-boyfriend´s theory).

Was it a projection of his ethereal body? His unknown twin brother (abandoned by their mum at an early age) who came to my door, God knows why, and slept there, on the carpet, near by the building´s cats, unnoticed?

 

Everything is possible - that is something Egypt (life) has taught me. The funny - and depressing - thing is how ignorance, frustration and weaknesses can play with people´s minds. I know that it´s easier - more comfortable - to believe a dancer like me was successful in Egypt because she slept her way up. This is the regular way - I know, I´ve been there, seen it with my own eyes and kicked loads of assholes. The thing is: now pay attention: there are exceptions to the rule and those who don´t believe in them also don´t believe in themselves and in the power we all have to shape our lives as we wish.
Understand this, dear ex-criminal boyfriend and fellow haters: this world is full of possibilities and the fact that I´ve made it to the top without selling my soul to the devil is a reason to believe DREAMS are POSSIBLE and we don´t have to loose our Humanity for them. It should make you proud - not mad.

The world starts to change inside of ourselves. Right here. Right now.

P.S. I think I got extra material for my first novel. Don´t you just love mad people? So creative, so inspiring...