100-Word Fiction: ‘There are No Airports in Zamalek’

The icon on the map says airport, but there are no airports in Zamalek. There are lights in the sky though, from over the river at Salah Salem to the Marriott where westerners eat ful. Helicopters, flares and buckshot bring fireworks. The reports say the streets are filled with protestors and their cars – taxi horns blare incessantly through the night. The code remains the same: one blast of the horn, possible danger; two blasts, imminent tragedy; three, almost too late. We are almost too late. The horns never stop. The bronze lions of the Qasr Al-Nil Bridge avert their gaze.