wama

07.06.13

do you remember that day.
You said goodbye. But didn’t leave.
We went for coffee. Then a walk. Then more coffee.
And we continued to walk up and down the corniche. Look to the sea.

“That juice is not fresh.”

Another day.

From here the shouting, honking, commotion on the street reaches me by way of a journalist’s cell phone. He is in his apartment a block from the ferris wheel, he moves to the balcony to see young men on mopeds streaming past, clamoring drawn to the scene of the crime.They prove their loyalty in their outrage. I stand at the top of a dune and look out to the ocean - panicked and lost. What next. Who next. The reports say something like “anti-syrian parliamentarian and son killed in car-bomb blast with 6 others.” Later they confirm that 9 are dead. I want to know about those 6 people. I want the headline turned upside-down. 10 killed in bomb blast by a popular swim club and amusement park along the seaside boardwalk where families and friends meet to fish, walk, drink coffee, smoke shisha, swim and enjoy the cool breezes from the sea. One of those confirmed dead is Walid Idon. He was sipping coffee, playing backgammon with his son and generally shooting the shit with friends in a popular café when the car bomb exploded. The seven other yet to be named victims include a two wait-staff, one surly one pleasant, a ful vendor, a bright eyed woman with a promising career as a poet who, sitting at a neighboring table had just asked the parliamentarian’s son for to light her cigarette, two bodyguards to Mr. Eido, and an anxious young man puffing impatiently on his water pipe looking expectantly towards the long entrance to the outdoor café hoping she would come soon, a middle aged woman hurrying her daughter along as they are late for an appointment.” I want the report to tell me where you are. If you are okay. That you were nowhere near that café on that day at that moment smoking a cigarette because you quit last time I visited.

A near death experience.
We sat on your balcony talking about near death experiences.
I can tell a good story.
You and your friends have images and blank spots.
Silences.
Curfew and doing homework in the dark.
I think about all the windows open so that glass does not break when the bomb explodes across the street.
My life.
Yours.

posted by la kara @ 06:19