What happens when a public holiday is forced upon you and you're in no mood for one? Or better still, when Monday looks like Friday without that comforting weekend feeling? This Monday I woke up to a rather cold and grey Dubai that was surprisingly still. "A public holiday has been declared in Dubai," the morning papers screamed. I looked down from my home on the 27th floor to a Shaikh Zayed Road that could best be described as "dead".
Where was all the hustle and bustle, the happy noises and the pleasing purr of engines so synonymous with the word "holiday".
Not a leaf stirred, not a car whizzed past, not a crane lifted its head and not a single eatery welcomed a hungry soul. Now, wait a moment, was I reading it right? Are we mourning something or someone here?
"It's a public holiday in Dubai and you're listening to Radio 2 Classic Hits on 99.3FM," a radio somewhere said loud and clear. So, I did read it right. It was a public holiday... just that this one time Dubai had decided to "observe" a holiday and not "celebrate" one.
By shutting down the main thoroughfares and service lanes, by restricting movement, by forcing us to be home, it was certainly a public holiday we were not ready for.
A little later in the day there is some activity on the third lane of the Shaikh Zayed Road, not too far from the World Trade Centre Roundabout. I look down again, and spot some happy souls trying to make the most of a road they've never seen so still.
The cameras click, fast and furious, there's some laughter, a man slumps down face up, hands raised, asking his friends to get the shot right, some laughter again and then the sound of a police patrol car. The group is shooed away almost immediately and then silence descends again, slowly and unhappily.
Towards noon there is a little activity near the Satwa mosque. It's time for the afternoon prayers, but even then the usually crowded mosque bears a desolate look. A few choppers circle the entire area and the whirring sound is a pleasant distraction.
"He's coming, he's coming... keep looking and you'll see him soon," my neighbour tells me in all excitement.
"Is that why they've forced us to stay home, and closed these roads?" I ask, trying to get the gossip.
"Well, for the world's most powerful man, anything's possible," she says, and warns me not to venture out without my identity card.
More choppers circle the airspace around my house, and suddenly I feel important, almost privileged to be present in that moment of action. The green cars of Dubai police go up and down Shaikh Zayed Road, close to Emirates Towers and suddenly there is a lot of activity.
Couples creep out on the other balconies - Arabs, Iranians, Indians... a melting pot of cultures, a feel of the real Dubai that we see on the roads and all around us.
There are people on the pavements as well... curious eyes, waiting for the world's most powerful man to whiz by. And then he comes, comfortably ensconced in one black car among a hundred others that speed along the deserted Shaikh Zayed Road, past our eyes in less than half a second.
Onlookers
There is no reaction from the onlookers, none at all, and the choppers still continue to circle as if on a warning note of "don't you dare".
For the world's most powerful man this has definitely been a different tour of sorts - a city comfortably tucked away at home on a forced public holiday. Anything for the security of the world's powerful man, the papers will scream again, I thought. The world's most powerful man? Well, for me at least, staring down from my 27th floor home, I'd like to remember him as the world's smallest man cooped up in the world's smallest car. It's funny how perspectives change and from my little nest high up there I'm glad I measured him that way.
