The city moved too fast. The lights were too bright. The people too distant. Andro stood on a crowded sidewalk in downtown Cairo, the sounds around him deafening. Car horns screamed like warnings. Digital ads flickered on massive screens above. Strangers passed by without making eye contact, their eyes glued to glowing rectangles in their hands.

  He had walked these same streets before—at least he thought he had. But this wasn’t the Cairo he knew. This version felt cold, distracted, anxious.

  He glanced at his reflection in a shop window. Same face. Same '90s clothes. Same cassette player hanging from his shoulder. But the world around him no longer matched. A sticker on the glass read: “Be Emotionally Unavailable. Protect Your Energy.”

  What did that even mean?

  He tried to ask for help. He approached a young man wearing headphones and a hoodie, tapping at his phone.

  “Excuse me,” Andro said softly, “do you know where I can find a phone booth?”

  The man looked up, blinking. “A what?”

  “A phone booth. To make a call.”

  The guy chuckled. “Dude, just use your cell.”

  “I don’t have one.”

  “Alright, grandpa. Good luck with that,” the man smirked and walked off.

  Grandpa. Andro was twenty-five.

  He wandered the city, each step heavier than the last. The smells were different—synthetic and sharp. The people were louder. The women walked with earbuds in, confident, disconnected. Couples didn’t speak softly anymore. Some argued openly. Others sat across from one another in cafés, scrolling through phones instead of looking into each other’s eyes.

  He stepped into a pharmacy. The lights were too white. Too clean. He asked the man behind the counter, “Is this really the year 2017?”

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  The pharmacist frowned. “Yes... Are you alright?”

  Andro took a step back. “Thank you.” He left.

  He found a bench in a park. Sat down. Pressed play on his cassette. The song started—crackled, distorted—but familiar.

  He looked to the sky. “Lord, I don’t know where I am. Or why I’m here. I feel like a ghost.”

  No answer came. Just the old music playing in his hand.

  Hours passed. The city glowed like a machine that never slept. That night, he curled into a corner beside a run-down alley, clutching his cassette player like a relic. Sleep came in fragments. Restless. Uneasy.

  He woke to shouting.

  A group of teenagers were filming a TikTok dance video nearby, their loud music and laughter bouncing off the walls. One of them noticed him.

  “Yo, check out the homeless vintage guy!”

  They laughed. One of them raised a phone, aiming it at Andro.

  “Please don’t,” he said.

  “Relax, bro! It’s just content!” the boy grinned and backed off.

  Content.

  He didn’t understand what was so funny. Or so shareable. Or why being kind, or polite, or confused was something to mock.

  He walked away. Found a small church tucked between two apartment blocks. It was open. Dimly lit. Silent.

  He stepped inside. Sat in the back pew. The silence welcomed him.

  He knelt and prayed quietly, “God... if I’m here for a reason, I need you to show me. I don’t understand this world. I don’t understand these people. Everything feels... wrong.”

  His voice broke. Tears slipped down his face.

  “I don’t know how to be myself here. I don’t know how to exist.”

  He stayed there for hours. When he finally left, the noise outside felt louder than before. But something inside him had changed—not clarity, but surrender. A subtle readiness. He realized something painful: he wasn’t going back to his old life. At least not yet.

  He would have to survive in this time. Even if it meant being alone. Even if it meant watching the world he knew vanish, piece by piece.

  That night, he met Yousef.

  The old man ran a tiny shop in a crumbling building near downtown. He saw Andro standing under the rain and offered him shelter on the rooftop.

  “You’re not from around here, are you?” Yousef asked, handing him tea.

  “I’m not even sure I’m from this time,” Andro replied honestly.

  Yousef didn’t laugh. He just nodded.

  “The world is strange now,” the old man said. “But maybe... you’re the kind of strange it needs.”

  Andro stared at the steam rising from the tea cup. “I feel like I came from another life.”

  “Sometimes,” Yousef said, “that’s not a metaphor.”

  That night, Andro lay on a thin mattress under the stars. The cassette still played by his side.

  The world was trying to reshape him. But he wasn’t ready to let go of who he was.

  Not yet.