The Debauchee

First scene:

The sun was about to set, and the voices of the birds were rising on this giant tree which is covering half the sky in front of the one sitting behind it, allowed to get back to their nests in a beautiful symphony that isn’t comparable with anything but the change in the color of the sky with the sunset of the sun to be a witness to that high mountain and a lot of people’s talking in this place. When “Wahid” knocked on the door of doctor Tolba Al-Fawah, the friends were used to setting in the hall every evening to talk, and sometimes to hide from the continuous missile bombing to the town since the war has begun with the Houthis.

Tolba opened the door while he was still sleepy as he didn’t sleep well the last night because he has gone somewhere near town.

Wahid: Peace be upon you, how are you doing?

Tolba: Thanks to god, come in I will perform ablution for Maghrib, and I will make you some tea. You seem to be tired, Tolba was pulling his leg hardly as he was suffering from the lack of sleep and the blood pressure rising. He was walking heavily pulling his leg with tiredness.

Wahid: Don’t tire yourself, I will make the tea and prepare the hookah, you go get the bowel.

Wahid went to make the tea after he put the hookah on the heater in the hall. The weather was calm and clear, as today there isn’t any Cloudiness and it’s hard for the Houthis to missile their bombs as the army will easily locate them.

Tolba is an Egyptian doctor in the 50s of his age, he seems to be older because of Knee osteoarthritis which makes him pull his leg while moving, he is distinguished by his intelligence which he is using the best use in his work and relations with women. It’s hard to judge his formation as he is the kind of evil and the honest liar. He is generous in the limits that satisfy him and greedy with the people he hates the most, a kind person, talkative, open-minded, impulsive, have more than one face, can serve a lot using his relations with the people near him, he can be implicated easily especially if it has something to do with women as he is weak against the soft sex, he has a wonderful ability to ask questions and transfer the people’s talking which can cause temptation between people, he never keeps a secret, and he always prays on time. He has a great ability to stay late, saving numbers in the so-called pictorial memory. Lying and believing his lie, he grew up in a rich family whose father was a senior judge, his mother from a respected family known as the Delta Region, and learned in Cairo at a famous French school.

Dr. Firas, the gynecologist, soon attended and everyone sat down and pulled breaths from his Hookah ‎. The birds calmed down after sunset and the atmosphere became calm. He managed the Tolba of the music player to listen to the songs of Farid al-Atrash and Abdel Halim Hafez.

Firas Al-Ashmawy, Syrian, in the late 50s of his age, short, with small and sharp black eyes, light black hair inclined to baldness, wearing a permanently light gray suit. Intelligent, observing, distractable, careful, knows his goal, temperament, good at his work, exaggerates his ordinary work as if medicine had never brought her before to laugh at those who did not know. My country loves Syria and emigrates from it and the Chechen ISIS militants took over his home in Raqqa.

With prayers and tours in Europe with women, colleagues should be called the names of exotic animals, who can come out with a scathing irony married to a Romanian who lives in her country to take care of children and has a son and a daughter. He got into a conflict with the Specialties Authority for not licensing a consultant, filed a case to claim his right, and unfortunately took his right as he left the country once and for all. He came back again, and he works in the hospital as a consultant who forgot about the birth.

Firas: Give me your phone, Doctor Tolba. I want to sign in on Facebook.

Tolba: all right, take the phone. Firas browses and adds pictures of his Romanian girlfriends on the Tolba page so that his wife in Romania can’t see his friends.

Firas: Look at the Tolba, look at This, how beautiful is she! Look at how rising her chest is, and her backside is very out, I swear I missed her, we are not living here, we are dead, and I swear to God the dogs are living better than us.

Tolba: What can we do? This is our destiny to die so that others can live.

Firas: I had this girl a lot of times, by the way, she is an amazing blowjob. You are invited to come to Romania to have fun there. My house is open to you so that you and your families come and leave them together and live our lives.

Tolba: I’ll make you tea with me, I’ll do again.

Wahid: Make me a cup with you, but with no sugar. He kept talking and followed up saying: I swear to God that the hardest thing here is that all the work that you are working isn’t known by the children of our home, and won’t be remembered by the days, It is not an asset to us at home, no matter what you do here and save or heal lives. Only credit to him in the memory of your history. The only balance left is aging and possibly dying away from the family and the homeland…

Firas: Oh God, you are right, do not turn on worries, Doctor Wahid.

Tolba is walking while dragging his legs like a penguin.

Return to serve two plates of cabbage stuffed. Wahid asks him: Where did you get this stuffed cabbage from?

Tolba: I bring it from Egypt, and It was in the freezer.

Wahid: But this tastes fresh. I swear to the Quran that some woman made this and sure yesterday

Tolba smiles in malice: no, it’s from Egypt

Wahid: Take care, the woman who made this stuffed cabbage loves you, she will not leave you, she is intending to marry you.

Then Firas replied: I swear to God, Doctor Wahid is talking in a good and dangerous way.

Tolba smiled with a yellow smile and repeated his words hesitantly: No, it’s from Egypt. Everything in your mind is false.

Everyone shut up, they felt like he was hiding something, no one wanted to pressure him to talk. Talking took another curve and Tolba started talking about work problems and that they call him in emergency for simple situations that do not require waking him up at Fajr, and that emergency doctors lack experience and are afraid to deal with patients. Wahid’s commented: This is normal because doctors treat the patient as a bomb that will explode at any moment and to prevent any dangers, you must make the patient go to the specialist to take responsibility. This is called defensive medicine, and this is not going to be found except in the Gulf because of the complaints that are being made against bad people that harm doctors.

Suddenly a nearby explosion sounded, and everyone jumped inside to take cover from the following rockets. The bombing kept going and also the sound of explosions.

Firas: This sound is different from the one before it.

Wahid responds: This is the sound of artillery being hit, and the response to them from us. The prayer of ECHA ‎started, and Firas took permission to go to his nearby house.

Wahid says while he hits the fly on his hand: you know that your house is safer than any other house in the town because it’s on low ground and it’s hidden in the hill that the house is built on.

Tolba: and what’s coming! What will we do in this life we living?

Wahid: don’t worry. They are bombing at us targeting the hospital, and tomorrow they will announce that the hospital is the military one.

Tolba Al-Fawah: What do you mean?

Wahid: It means we only receive the patients and then transfer them to the nearest hospital; this would leave the hospital vacant which would make Houthis not consider it a target.

Tolba: Until when are we going to be targeted?

Wahid: Until this shade is gone, the ministry said: there will be no compensation from the ministry for whoever dies, but his heirs could receive aid from the government.

Tolba Mockingly: Very well, so we die, and our heirs rejoice, and my wife could even get married again.

Wahid: What are you thinking about? You would be receiving judgment, remember Allah!

Tolba: No god but Allah!

Wahid: By the way, I wanted to ask you: What is it with the stuffed cabbage and that place you went to yesterday?

Tolba appeared to be chewing something and said: Honestly, I got myself involved with some Egyptian woman working there, you know her, Soha, who used to work here at the university, she came to me with her sick daughter, and I treated her, she took my number and started chasing me, anyway I unofficially married her a year ago.

Wahid nervously: ARE YOU CRAZY!!! How could you get involved in something like this? And you are happy with her. Of course, the stuffed cabbage, Porridge, and pigeons were able to control you.

With sad facial expressions, Tolba Al-Fawah answered: she wants to record the marriage, or we leave each other, and I pay her 10,000 dollars as alimony.

Wahid shouted out loud and stood up: what a disaster you got yourself into. what are you going to do?

I swear I don’t know; I will try to convince her to lower the amount of money that I will pay a little.

The problem is that she knows my house in Egypt because I took her there once and Radia wasn’t there.

Wahid: why are you getting yourself into trouble, why are women getting you mad.

Tolba: you know my theory, women are grace, and anyone who hates them gets blind……Laughing in a black irony.

Wahid: I will tell you a French proverb “The man is the fire, the woman is the firewood, and the demon is the desire”

As long as you are living, must you be a Casanova?! I don’t have these thoughts at all, a man should spend his time for himself, I read a novel, or follow my friends on Facebook, draw something, or I look for someone to play chess with, that’s better, I don’t want someone in my life to bother me, and she will have demands, also pregnancy, and so much trouble to inherit too.

Look Wahid, the most important thing in life is your third leg, my happiness is there.

That’s not happiness, that’s a load on you, that’s why you have pressure disease, the patients’ problems, lack of sleep, and staying late is enough for you my brother. Overall, that’s your personal life, and I can’t say anything to you but the advice. As my uncle – God rest his soul- was saying: people get bothered from the advice, and he was saying: “advised him, humped him”.

Wahid looked at his watch, the time is late, I have to go home, I have laundry, ironing, and reading a novel I haven’t finish.

See you tomorrow at the hospital.

Goodbye, my friend.

Tolba started to take some breaths from the Hookah ‎ he made again, as he had lots of cocktails that he gave names as the names of some songs like “ the love story”, “I will leave you to the time”, “ One Thousand and One Nights”, “ you are my life”.

Children only want money, and their mother isn’t asking about me, she just wants me to keep sending money.

Speaking generally, Tolba’s wife Radia doesn’t like him, she knows what he is doing, and he knows that she knows. He remembers when she stopped him on the car in the Maadi road while he was picking his friend “Samah”, and that day she caused a traffic jam, and kept yelling at the standing cop to make a report for him unless the family got involved, his mother-in-law was wise and she stood for him to avoid the divorce.