John of Book Mine Set reviewed this story back in June. He was looking for stories set in Egypt and ran across this one. His review intrigued me enough to want to read this story for myself.
Niko’s fiancee, Carly had just left him to study for her “Master’s Degree in Skeletons..” He was in his Cairo apartment when the khamaseen started up. Khamaseen is “fifty days of cyclonic wind which whirled up from the Saharan desert into Egypt”, which his neighbor, Margarete warned him of when he moved in.
All of a sudden debris and a bird were whirled into his apartment. Then somehow, a bunch of feral cats came in too. He called his selfish friend, Javier to ask for help however, he was on his way to pick up his new TV and wouldn’t come over to help.
It became clearly apparent that Niko didn’t have any friends. His crisis was an over the top symbolism for that. However, the story was an interesting character study of Niko and while I didn’t love the story, I did like it. You can read the story on Gretchen McCullough’s website, here.