La Tragedia Repetida

"O German mother dreaming by the fire, While you are knitting socks to send your son His face is trotten deeper in the mud"

Siegfried Sassoon, a highly decorated British "hero" of the First World War wrote these lines. He was tested for a psychological disorder because of his war criticism.

I realised that I was dead the moment that I did not hear the shot. For years I had told myself that as long as one can hear a shot being fired one is safe. Bullets exceed the speed of sound. They reach you without warning. Or rather, they arrive before their warning does. Thus when I did not hear it, I knew, knew with uncertain conviction that I was dead. The comfort lasted only as long as the thought.

It happened soon after we had passed the man sitting in the shade, the first casualty on this sunny and misty morning of madness, a man sitting in his own blood and urine.

We had gone to bed the previous evening, in an abandoned building, filled with fear and affected bravado and woke up, unwarranted and sudden in fearful chaos, a chaos superimposed on a calm realism, of colourful sunrise and gentle breeze, fractured by a gunpowder thirst that cannot go away.

Three men sent out last night to find a safe passage had failed to return by this morning. Sporadic shots became regular and intense with the approach of a misty, surreal morning without a sunrise. I cursed.

Farewell at last I said to these streets of pain. Violence ventured back and forth and frequent collective punishment measures quickly turned this into a place seething with anger against the occupation and the relentless bombardment.

In trying to put an end to history, we seem to have provoked another round of it - more vicious, more enduring, and more traumatic than before.

Danger, especially mortal danger, always seems to happen in the big spaces where we are not. We do not need to fear danger; we only have to fear it happening in that small space where we are.

The first death sitting in his blood and urine. La tragedia repetida.

A military officer armed with an umbrella, walking with calm purpose as slow people pass me by.

The true enemy do not always wear armbands, and strut, and command great rallies, but are impeccable gentlemen, who sell out their souls to a rampant power behind a smokescreen of propaganda that appropriate noble concepts such as "democracy", "freedom" and "human rights" and "our way of life" and "our values".

Is it that we don't actually want to win a new world? It can't be that, can it?

What truly is logic? Who decides upon reason? My quest has taken me through the physical, the metaphysical and even the delusional. It is terrible and mighty, and as an offspring of this delusion you wonder what you should do. For isn't it a part and parcel of its teachings that everything has a price and that there is always a time of reckoning?

You look around to find out what others are doing about it. They are doing what you are doing; wondering what to do. Knowing then that I am dead, from the shot that I had not heard, I sat down, heavily, with a sigh, knowing then that I am dead, no longer wondering what to do. Having done it all and having done nothing at all.

Coming Home!

I’m home! I’m home!

I am so excited! I’m home!

I can talk, talk to all and sundry! The loneliness of being so far away for too long is gone!

I can hold my little daughter! I hug and hug her! I’m home! Her touch, her smell, holding her so close! I’m home!

I feel alive and well, energetic in spite of the long journey to get here. The journey, normally so long and tiring, is but a vague and fussy notion that it must have happened; I have hardly any recollection of it.

Thus I decide to go for a run and without further ado I am running down the familiar road.

Now it was suddenly dark. How sensible would it be to run in the dark? I decide to turn around, but had been away for so long that it suddenly dawned on me that I may not recognise my house. I run along, very much alive but now a little concerned. Nothing looked familiar. A thick mat of fallen leaves washed around my feet. A policeman came past.

“Hello. Hello.” He says, familiar, friendly, home. Feeling safe now, and more confident, I decide to continue my run. My legs felt light, feathery; strong. No longer concerned with finding my home I run, turn right, then, after a while, right again.

On my right an abandoned building, a huge open space, a car wash and a workshop, offers the opportunity to take a shortcut. Yet the short, steep hill straight ahead seems inviting so I carry on. There is an intersection that I had never seen before, yet is familiar. It is now also light again.

There are a number of people standing around here, speaking a strange language but safely I run past all of them, back onto the road and down the hill.

This part of town is all dense buildings; a labyrinth of narrow alleys winding through it. It is also dark again.

The road is potholed and wet, I am running strongly and happy. This road continues as a very narrow, winding ally. I do not I want to run along this in the dark.

An old man, with whom I am acquainted, even though I do not know his name, waves me aside.

We hug briefly and talk, he promises to come and see me at home.

Running barefoot is so much fun, I have not done that since a child.

I ran past parks, shops, buildings where I had worked at various times. Strange, familiar, comfortable feelings well up inside me, the immeasurable pleasure of being home again.

Down my own street, things are now looking familiar once more. The trees are gone and so are all the fallen leaves on the ground. I am running along comfortably, breathing well, my legs seemingly working by themselves, the pain from which my overworked joints had suffered in the past few weeks completely gone.

Slowly, slowly I started realizing other small inconsistencies as well.

Why would everybody speak such a strange language?

Why can I not remember the journey home – the flights, the intermittent waits in airport lounges?

Why is it sometimes light and sometimes dark?

Slowly I realise that soon I will wake up, wake up far, far away, wake up in a cold, wet and distant city, there to pull on my shoes yet again and run for several hours, the excruciating pain in my joints as a result of this obsessive compulsion, beating the same slow rhythm as the intolerable, lonely ache in my heart.

First Let Me Break Your Knees

“How much does ten million Dollars weigh?”

“What?”

“Ten million Dollars….”

“Well twelve billion Dollars weigh 363 tons so . . .”

“How the fuck do you know that?”

“It was in the news. The Americans had sent twelve billion Dollars to Iraq in cash, hundred Dollar notes, and it weighed 363 tons. So use that as a basis and . . .”

“No that won’t fucking work – all those itsy-bitsy pieces of paper to hold the notes together, the plastic wrappers, they all weigh something, it all adds up for twelve billion Dollars that’s a fuck of a lot of extra weight – what the fuck they sent twelve billion Dollars to Iraq for?”

“Don’t know. To change for local currency I suppose. You know imperialism cost a lot of money you know.”

“Anyway the pallets probably weigh a fucking ton as well. Can’t use it like that.”

“Well suppose a hundred Dollar bill weighs ten grams then one …”

“Where the fuck do you get that from? Ten grams! Who the fuck told you that!”

“I am just supposing, will give you some sort of ballpark . . .”

“Ballpark is no good. I don’t want to suppose, I want to know and I want to be scientific about it. It is a lot of money.”

“Well weigh it then. I have here a hundred Dollar note.”

“In a plane! I have to weigh a hundred Dollar note in a fucking plane! What do I do? Ask the stewardess for a scale? Anyway you have a Hundred dollar note or Hundred Dollar notes? I thought I saw a big fat fucking wad of notes in you wallet.”

“They are all ones.”

“So you have a hundred and something Dollars in your possession?”

“Hundred and eighteen to be exact. One hundred, thirteen ones and one five.”

“Thirteen is not a good number. Now about the ten milli  . . .”

“Yes what are you on about this ten million Dollars for?”

“Well there is this stash  . . .”

“With a security company. I know. I also get those letters. It is a scam.”

“No, no, no. This is different. I happen to know this chap. Goes to work in Africa a few years ago. To plant rice or cabbages or something. Only where he goes to work there is this real nasty fucker in charge. Turns out his project has nothing to do with rice or cabbages, but about buying guns. He arrives, this nasty fucker he puts a gun to his head and tells him how he must buy AK’s and shit. Nice little scam. Anyway this chap he lasts six months then manages to get himself on a boat and fucks off outtha there . . . “

“How much money you got?”

“Maybe twenty. And some change, maybe. Anyway he gets the shit outta there but not before hiding ten million bucks.”

“So why does he not go and fetch it . . . You only have twenty bucks? What makes you think it is still there?

“It is there alright. Scared shitless he is of the place. The nasty fuck he is no longer around, buggered of somewhere else, whole world looking for him. Complicated but irrelevant. Anyway you are the money man. You make us some cash soon. I contact my friend. He tells us where the stash is. I go and fetch it, we split it three ways and Bob’s your uncle.”

“Sounds easy.”

“Nothing easier. But not if ten million bucks weighs seventeen fucking tons. Can hardly put seventeen tons in my overnight bag now can I?”

“I am the money man? Since when? And what are you?”

“I am the creative guy . . . the ideas man . . .”

“You have created fuck shit in your entire life. You put me on a plane with tickets you bought with borrowed . . .”

“Not really borrowed. I have no intention of giving it back.”

“OK. That’s beside the point. I find you on some fucking farm somewhere. . . what the fuck where you doing there anyway?”

“Long story. This guy he wants me to write a manual for him, on organic farming. Lures me to his place puts me on this fucking farm. Godforsaken place as you saw. I write the manual boring as shit.”

“Was he paying you?”

“Was gonna earn royalties or something. It is irrelevant. I needed a place to stay and that was important at the time. Time to get my head together. Get some ideas.”

“You genuinely believed that you were going to earn royalties from a manual on organic farming?”

“It is beside the point. Turns out this chap really wants somebody to look after the place. Dilapidated rundown piece of shit place, not a fucking lock in sight. He needs somebody to stay there take care of all his shit. Writing the fucking manual just some harebrained little scheme of his. He has many. Anyway I go fucking crazy out there. I get in touch with you. You come and save me. We now gonna do something constructive.”

“Collecting ten million bucks from some African hellhole.”

“No sarcasm, please.”

“I think that as soon as we land you take us to wherever we are staying . . .”

“Well where would that be . . . now that you mention it?”

“Sorry, I am a bit confused here. I thought you said this place is practically your home . . .”

“Practically my fucking home, not actually my fucking home. You’re the one who mentioned you have a house here.”

“Rented out, you nitwit.  Rent pays my alimony. You don’t know anybody where we can stay?”

“Know loads of people. Want to avoid all of them . . .”

“So we are using borrowed money to fly . . .”

“Not borrowed . . .”

“. . . to some godforsaken . . .”

“It’s not godforsaken it is a metropolis . . .”

“Some godforsaken fucking metropolis if you wish, with a hundred and fucking twenty eight . . .”

“. . . thirty eight and some change I think . . .”

“. . . fucking Dollars to our collective names . . .”

“Calm down. No need to get all worked up and agitate an entire fucking planeload of decent people . . .”

“. . . to embark on some harebrained little scheme to collect ten million Dollars from God knows where . . .”

“Calm down. It’s all worked out.”

“Where is this famous friend of yours anyway?”

“Don’t know exactly. He is selling orchards or something . . .”

“. . . which means he is off somewhere in some Brazilian tropical jungle . . .”

“. . . I will find him . . .”

“. . . with money that I am supposed to earn somewhere, fuck knows somehow . . . sending you of to some tropical shithole, catching all sorts of diseases most likely, looking for some dickhead, who claims to have ten mill . . .”

“. . . not a dickhead . . .”

“. . .ion Dollars stashed. . .”

“. . . quite a nice guy actually . . .”

“. . . in some godforsaken hellhole . . .”

“. . . Tulips . . .”

“. . . What?”

“He is a tulip salesman. He’ll be found in Holland or thereabouts. Somewhere in Europe.”

“OK, so we find your man. He tells you all about a stash of ten million or so in loose change that he had left laying about somewhere. You go and fetch it. We kindly split it between ourselves and . . .”

“. . . Bob’s your uncle . . . can’t think of anything easier.”

“And if ten million Dollars weigh seventeen tons?”

“Then we get some babes, three or five, whatever is necessary, gorgeous ones, distribute the stash amongst them. Also they charm us through customs and immigration. Useful to have around. Attract no attention and no suspicion.”

“Yes you arrive in some African war zone . . .”

“. . . ex-war zone . . .”

“. . . with a planeload of gorgeous babes . . .”

“. . . drooling over me . . .”

“. . . without attracting the slightest bit of attention . . . then when they come back they all promptly disappear with bags of cash, our cash. No matter we’ll go and complain to the police . . .”

“. . . we rent somebody, some huge mother fucker . . . meets them at the airport . . . easy . . .”

“. . . hire . . .”

“. . . hire what? . . .”

“You rent things, and hire people . . .”

“. . . whatever, we rent . . . hire, this huge mother fucker. . . keeps everything in check . . .”

“. . . this is getting very complicated . . .”

“You are complicating things, a very simple thing really. All I need to know is how much does ten million Dollars weigh . . .”