For years we had lived in the heart of the Arabian desert, in a cozy flat with a view of the busy highway, where I and my brother, mesmerized by the never ending trail of cars, would often sit to count them. A task as impossible as counting the stars and as ridiculous as feeding all the sugar in the house to the ants, but then that’s how childhood is; a person is unaware of impossibility, a term that haunts us in most of our adult life.

Since some time, the cars on the highway seized to be our primary fascination. We had been told that our mother was going to have a baby; that it would be very little and we could play with it. This was a matter of curiosity for us especially for my little brother as he would no longer be the little baby at home. We would try to listen keenly to anything the baby had to say to us. Day by day our curiosity grew and we began doing our homework in the living room so as not to miss out on anything.

As two human children waited for a mysterious big bright egg to crack and a fairy tale creature to pop out – one of Barney’s dinosaurs, a dragon from the dragon tales or perhaps a gummy bear, a little baby girl kept turning in her sleep.

Meanwhile, we would be at home watching TV with granny while mum and dad would be visiting the hospital. In one of these trysts we watched a movie about a little boy whose mother was also going to have a baby. He however didn’t seem so happy once the baby was home. It appeared that his parents no longer paid attention to him and instead spent all their time talking about the baby- its needs and its features. The little boy looked like a poor creature forced out of its niche. We dreaded the thought of being neglected once the baby was home. But, since there wasn’t much we could do, we decided to submit to our destinies. 

Soon, the day arrived. The baby had finally appeared and dad told us that we had got ourselves a baby sister. We were happy since it meant we would soon have someone to play with. Our demand to visit the baby however was turned down.