Children with Moobs

I arrive in Cairo. Predictably, given the nature of indie filmaking, it turns out Mr Gabriel Fleming, Director, has not yet written the script.

We sit in a restaurant over chicken shawarma and debate possible plot options.

"So there's a scene where you and Donovan have to escape these two guys, and I can't figure out how you would do that..."

"Banana peel," I suggest helpfully. "Potholes. Hiding under a burqa. We both get dressed in burqa. I scream 'RAPE' and point at our pursuers and the milling crowd mob them in outrage while we slip quietly away."

"Don't be silly," says Gabe briskly. "This is Egypt. They'd probably turn around and stone you."

We all snicker and then pretend it wasn't funny because, let's face it, it was a rampantly racist joke and Gabriel should know better.

"Chunky children. Children with moobs."

"That doesn't work with the plot Ruth!"

"No, I was looking at the fat kids on that table."

An array of plump blond children wibble into the restaurant and shriek delightedly as they surround an empty table. They quiver like finely set jello.

"Shut the fuck up, I'm trying to eat!" I scream before I can stop myself.

Gabe and Donovan look at me in horror. I realize my personality problems have become more pronounced. I am plagued by paranoia and misanthropy at the moment, not helped by the constant stares you get wandering the streets of Cairo as a white woman, even when every inch of you is covered. Cairo is like a grimy Paris, full of sheeshas and dodgy mustached men and skinny dogs with curly tails. Tall twenties buildings are faded and dirty, ramshackle iron-wrought elevators shuddering and sighing to a halt in between floors. I get up after a sleepless night and wander down to hotel reception, where I sip treacly Turkish coffee in between two burqa-clad matrons and watch an episode of American Gladiators from 1987. Tracy Hutton from Texas wins the elimination round. We sit there, transfixed. The lady from reception, wearing a gaudy hijab, glides over and touches my sleeve, a gentle smile playing upon her lips.

"You must leave room. You can stay in friend's room."

"But we're not married!"

"So sorry. You go."

I am constantly being evicted. This new eviction sinks me into a deeper, ash covered gloom, shrouded by cheap cigarette smoke, heavy lidded eyes peeping over beige knitted cable sweaters, peeking and prying and watching. There's no privacy in Cairo. It's too gray. Gabe and I shuffle around town to find me a new room, and I think longingly of Clive, my infidelitous actor, and sleeping away comfortably on his sofa while his dog licks my face and he ignores me and leers at on-screen large breasted hot women.

I sleep in the new room all afternoon, and awake to a huge mosquito supping away on my blood.

Sporting a new itchy red spot on the side of my face, we regroup and go out to dinner at a fast food place which sells some kind of macaroni with spicy sauce. There seems to be a trend for the owners of such establishments to commission faux-oil-painting airbrushed portraits of themselves sporting seedy, masturbatory grins upon their faces. These are hung at all convenient wall spaces, so you are constantly being watched by multiples of lairy man as you eat. I assume the pose of one of these men, fat grin, money eyes, leaning on thumb and index finger, and a lady catches my eye and giggles appreciatively.

Thank god we start filming tomorrow. Insanity is near. Chunky children, children with moobs.

Cock.