Bayat and sleep Mawwal

Author's name: Khairy Shalaby

“I am nothing but a wild, evil, and crazy storyteller. If I were sane, I wouldn’t be Khairi Shalaby.”
* * *
“When I first saw Aziza Al-Qashlan at the Radio Club, I was stunned and my heart sank when I discovered that she called herself Maysa Al-Bahrawi. She knew me as well as I knew her, but she always challenged me from a hidden angle. I was alone with her once for two minutes in the elevator and whispered to her with a friendly smile, ‘How are you, Aziza?’ She shot me a glare and said with utmost boldness and defiance, ‘Hello, master.’ I didn’t respond, and it was as if we had a verbal agreement that neither of us would disturb the other. I knew that as a phenomenon in the artistic community, she wasn’t the first and would not be the last, which is why I left the kingdom to the owner, as the people of the time had advised me. But I—and neither did she—expected that this strange and difficult situation would bring us together.”