"لا حول و لا قوة الا بالله. Can't these young kids just stop swearing at anything with a rank?"
A guy in his 20s opposite him answers.
"Shut up! Traitor! Mubarak's rat! Freedom...Freedom!" he says as he lights up a Rothman.
The first customer, a man in his late 40s, swears under his breath.
"I don't understand what you're complaining about, at least you don't have tens of thousands of bodies at your feet." says the young woman sitting on my right. With a black head scarf and a long dress, none of us understood what she was doing here.
"You don't understand Miss. Our bloody fight is over, now it's time for the political fight!" says the Rothman guy, his eyes gleaming with the revolution.
"Fight fight fight fight, woof woof woof, all you do is bark" says the newspaper man.
"At least we bark, unlike you Mubarak rats, silenced for 30 years" says the Rothman guy and follows his statement with a spit to his right.
Across from me and to the newspaper man's right sits a young man, perhaps my age. Chestnut hair and green eyes, he sits smoking a mint Sheesha.
"The three of you are speaking nonsense! At least you have the PRIVILEGE to fight back against whatever. We're just massacred like sheep, and all we do is march on."
The young woman, sitting to his right, pats his shoulder lightly.
"We've all lost a lot, don't worry, the sun will shine" she whispers in his ear.
To my left this wire-thin man sighs deeply.
"Too long, too long" He says. Head leaned back against the wall, eyes shut, he sighs again.
"Don't worry. We're all with you!" says the Rothman guy to my right.
"How long? How long? You know my children don't even understand. They say 'Papa, Saleh left, why are you still sad?' "
"I heard he was planning on coming back?" says the man in his late 40s.
The wire-thin man laughs lightly, still leaned back against the wall, eyes shut.
"Ben Ali left, yet sometimes it feels like he's still there" a man to the right of the young woman spoke.
"They never leave, they never leave" whispers the wire-thin man.
Sitting to his left was a man wearing a white robe. He had taken his "Shimag" off a while ago, it was hot in here.
"We didn't even want him to leave, we didn't ask for a lot. Why? Why?" he says.
Yes, why? I look over at where Mounir was standing. I expect him to say something, but he doesn't. Standing there wiping mugs as he always does, he seems uninterested in what we're saying.
Setting down my coffee cup I get up and excuse myself. Murmurs of good-byes follows me out of the cafe.
How? Why? We might be waiting for answers that may not come.
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