Contemplations...before... Posted by Hello

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"I know what that means!" he remarked, with a hint of excitment. "It says 'Allah'. " I explained. "Yeah! Aalaa !". I wasn't going to argue with a security guard at BWI over the correct pronounciation of the Arabic word. We were in the in the 'High Security' line. "I know why they placed me here," said the lady before me. "It happens every time I don't check in any luggage"... "Well," I replied, "It happens every time they read my name." She gave me a quizzical look. The New Zealanders behind me looked at me. "Do we really have to take off our shoes now?"... "You're better off taking them off now than later." I felt I owed them more explanation. "This is for our security, you know. It's better to be safe than sorry"...I wanted to add, especially with the elections approaching...but I bit my tongue... "So why do you wear it?" I turned to the almost...
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‘ I don’t know…Well, we didn’t know until the lists came out...the published lists. He was taken in 1981. My older brother had fled the country. So they came for him, for the younger brother…our youngest. He was a student at the University of Mousl. My mother visited him when they would let her, for a year or so. He would grope at the dirty bars that separated them, and say, “ I’m fine. It’s only a matter of time. They have nothing against me. They’ll let me go, eventually .” And they did let him go…The next time she visited, they told her he was no longer there.’ Eventually, his spirit was 'let go'…with many others, I think. They swam in the mass graves, surfaced at the pits of where the bodies had been strewn, spat back at their killers and subsided into peace down in the beds of the pits…collectively. ‘They don’t know what it means to be Shiite. They think it’s a sin. We are no more sinners than they are…Who is to say what God’s tolerance will know?…Ours is a way of ...
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'F alluuuuuuuuujaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhh!' Basil’s voice trailed as he attempted a not-so-philharmonic rendition of Eruption's, ‘Illusion’ –then, a chart hit, in the eighties. We all sat there, in the rear of the Volvo station wagon; what my mother’s cousin used to refer to as the ‘Monkeys' Stall’. We sat like monkeys, our folded elbows resting on our bent knees, rocking vigorously, to the music, while our parents discussed politics, in lowered voice tones. ' Fallujah Kabab ', the same old sign would read. ‘They have Kabab for breakfast, these people!’ ‘Will you stop making fun of these poor people! At least they eat to their hearts content! What do you have for breakfast, anyway?’ My mother’s stern voice silenced the chatter, but not long enough. Before too long, Basil was again singing, 'Falluuujaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhh!' Every time, we planned one of those trips to the Habaniya Lake Resort, we passed by that sign. For the 8 or 80 years of travel b...
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