Taxi Driver

The details were gruesome. A black plastic bag had been found in
front of the Italian restaurant near my house... with pieces of a
woman's body inside it... The police are trying to cover it up... to
avoid a panic... Well I'm panicking anyway. They think there's a serial
killer on the loose in Cairo... and nobody seems to be doing anything
about it. His victims: young women. I fit into that category. The
places he abducts them from: the restaurants I go to.

The details were gruesome. But he doesn't rape them. Are we supposed to
be thankful for that? These women were left some dignity... before
being hacked up into tiny pieces. Rumours of bodies being found
headless... of bodies and heads that don't go together... And I'm
panicking.

I got in a taxi this morning. Apparently the murderer is most probably
a taxi driver. And I was panicking. I had to get to the metro station.
And there was no other way. Some people said he might not be a taxi
driver... just a man who picks up young women. Are there women stupid
enough to get into the car of a man they don't know? It seems
so...

Anyway... I'm sitting in that taxi... eyeing the driver as subtly as I
can... wondering... is this what a serial killer looks like? What does
a serial killer look like? Does it show in his eyes? His face? Or does
he look like my father, my neighbour, my colleague at work? Well this
taxi driver looked like a serial killer. The whites of his eyes were
anything but white. One or two of his nails were bitten down to the
skin... the others were a bit too long... Was that dried blood under
his nails... or just dirt? I was panicking...

I kept my hand on the handle of the door... prepared to jump out of the
taxi the moment something went wrong... they make it look easy enough
in the movies... thinking... why did I stop carrying my pepper spray
with me? My heart was beating fast. My palms were sweaty. Did he just
look at me in the rearview mirror? What's he looking at? What's he
thinking? Which part he's going to chop up first? Is he going to start
with the hand... or maybe the finger... move to the leg?

I am really panicking...

I keep my eye on the road and on him at the same time... As well as I
can... He's going the right way. He hasn't taken any strange turns.
Hasn't driven through any small side-streets that are always empty...
But I'm still panicking...

We reach the metro station. I jump out of the taxi... hand him the
money through the window... breathe... and run towards the ticket
window...

After I got in the metro... I realized even if he had been the serial
killer... it's not like he could have done anything in broad
daylight... right? He can't be that stupid... can he? Well he's a
serial killer... it's not like he's all there...

I'm convinced that taxi driver was the serial killer... I'm sure that
was dried blood under his fingernails... I am panicking at the mere
thought of having been sitting in an enclosed space with a viscious
murderer...

Maybe I should have bludgeoned him with my camera on the back of his
head... At a traffic light... And then the traffic police could have
dealt with it from there... Maybe... maybe I have an overactive
imagination...

I think I'm going to start taking the bus...