The Last Time I Was in Cairo

My papa always told me that cairogenics was a cheaters way of living. He told me that life was supposed to be lived and enjoyed and trying to cheat just made it meaningless. Like playing Gold Fish with my Sissa. He told me that when I stole the cards from the deck when she went to go readjust the temperament equilibrator or when I looked at her cards that it made the game meaningless. I didn’t think so at first. But then she caught me once and was pretty mad and sad and I didn’t have any fun the rest of the game.

But then my papa got killed by his life and it made me very sad. Sissa told me that we were being taken to live with someone else but she must have lied to me because I never saw her again for a long time after the business lady came with her clipboard. I missed her but I’m still kinda mad she lied.

That was the first time I was in cairo. They said I’d have to be put there until the population got even. I guess the population never had his daddy tell him that getting even doesn’t solve a problem it just makes it worse. I told them cairogenics was a bad thing but they didn’t listen to me.

When I got out of cairo there was the business lady’s twin. Or they must’ve been sisters because they looked exactly the same except for their faces. Everyone looked the same except for their faces. The conceptionist with the telephone who said hello to me the first time said goodbye but in a different voice. But she looked the same, too.

The business lady told me that all the people I had met before had died or been put in cairo, too. But I knew she was lying because they all looked the same. Who they were never changed except for their faces.

My Sissa changed, though. She wasn’t the same. They told me my old Sissa had grown up and I would grow up, too, but with a new Sissa. But it wasn’t the same. The new one never played Gold Fish with me and she didn’t care when I cheated. There weren’t any more temperament equilibrators anymore because the air was super dusty.

I missed my papa.

So I stopped talking to the fake Sissa and the fake papa and mama they gave me. They said I was being encouragable which I thought meant a good thing, but they said it with frowning faces.

They put me back in cairo, saying that they needed agreeable party pants for the reintegration of families into society. Then there was the last time I was in cairo. I asked them what reintegration meant and they said it meant to introduce again. I still don’t know what happened to the first families like my papa and me and my Sissa.

When I woke up the next time I was taken out by the same business lady and conceptionist again but with different faces. They said hello and goodbye, and then they took me to an old lady who they said was my Sissa.

I didn’t believe them again. This one was much too old with gray hair and a crinkly face like when I would wad up a paper airplane. But they said she had extra growed up while I was in cairo. After they left the old lady said it was like limbo instead of cairo which doesn’t make sense because it was nothing like that game.

The old lady said she was my Sissa and she had tried for a long time to get me out of cairo but the governman wouldn’t let her take me. But then she finally got me.

We played Gold Fish for a while, but she didn’t say it like my Sissa used to. She said Go Fish instead which is silly because go isn’t a color. But then she laughed and when I tried to look at her cards she got all upset just like my Sissa. I started to think it might have been her all growed up.

She showed me a picture of papa and my Sissa and me. She showed me pictures of my Sissa and the pictures got older and older until they started to look like the old lady.

I asked my Sissa why she lied to me and why we didn’t stay together in a new house. She said she couldn’t have helped it with the governman. But she said she promised promised and promised me again that no one would take me away again. I asked her if I had cheated at life because I got put in cairo. I was real sad that papa might not have liked me for it. She looked sad for a minute, and said that it wasn’t my fault and no matter when I lived my life, it was still my life to live. She said that it was the last time I was in cairo and that I would ever be in cairo. She said and she promised me again and again that my life wasn’t something the governman could steal from me.

Then we played Gold Fish again, and I finally beat her at it and I didn’t cheat one time.

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