Lobotomy and COVID -19

It’s my quality, the quality of my individual self.

God thought me worthy enough to accommodate this quality. God planned what I might be able to achieve with this quality. It lives in a mindset that comes and goes under a cloud. I have figured out that the inspired are gifted from an epistemic space and God almighty is the owner of that. I am at the edge of that at the cusp of brilliance as God meant me to be so that I reach for what I need. Indeed, there are those who are more brilliant, more pious, more loving and more sensuous than I am. But as my father says,” I am not better than anybody else,” and in the words of the scripted Oklahoma, “I will be darned if I am not as good.”

I love that.

I love to admire the wealth of creation outside of myself and I love to admire beauty outside of myself.

Up the nose, past the deviated septum and into the brain.

Every COVID testing session is potentially treacherous. DNA, genetic codes and natural abilities are potentially parsed out through the nose. Apparently, it is a simple matter of extraction. The grey matter of the brain is potentially extracted from mucous particles and transposed from one human being to another for the purposes of enhancing the minds and human characteristics of the well endowed, or those gifted with affluent means to afford the procedure.

A surgical procedure.

Did you know that?

Can you imagine it? Siphoned parsed traits extracted from the mucous layers of the nose, sold to the highest bidder for the sake of the science of self- enhancement, in the guise of the transposition of God-given intelligence systems or mind-sets, juxtaposed and used to reconstruct the minds of deficient wealthy individuals. These people have no concern for anybody at all. Almost like a reversion to the ancient methodology of the extraction of the brain through the nose by suction, without consent and without knowledge of the owner.

Raising the question of ownership, is my brain legally considered my property?

The very idea of mucoid transposition for the sake of self-enhancement is already being presented in way to attract ethic sense. Later, this ethic sense may very well become imbued in marketing ploys, until what is now considered ethically incorrect becomes the new accepted and acknowledged practice – and always in he guise of goodness – of course. This activity may very well set the precedent for anticipated antics of the future and also the violations of harm and victimization for our gifted, diverse men and women all over the world.

I will not be the only target then.

The worst part is that this activity – a kind of plastination – might never be outlawed. After all, enhancement is a positive conceptualization, isn’t it?

Bring on the left wing.

And so the exemplification of future woman will read something like this in a future marketing ploy…

Mail order self enhancement, bone lengthening, hair coloring, face lifting, mental and emotional deficits or whatever you don’t have – bought and paid for over the net – presented in the click button icon of the appropriate applications software.

So where is self acceptance in all of this?

There are parts of myself I do not like, but I get on with my life and like any other organism, I adjust accordingly.

The targeting of gifted and talented people with the promise of pillage and despair for the have-nots used as slaves to parse off any goodness demonstrated for the sake of the pastimes of the exceptionally rich, will this be representative of future enhancement activity?

Is this the future for the ordinary person on the street?

The search, the identification and targeting of innocent individuals who wish no-one any harm abused under duress and without consent or full knowledge for the sake of self enhancement and narcissistic cravings of the modern age selfie. An elite group of despots enraptured by photos of empty poises and look at me, am I not wonderful? Then, a human race will be sold in bondage until there is no worth, until there is no value and worse still, until there will be no goodness at all. The exemplified, the lauded caught by the ankle and shackled by software applications. A targeted intelligentsia, until there is no-one to think any idea at all and there is no language spoken by anyone except to appease the envy of man and woman. Until human beings are heartless creatures like empty shells without soul, only construed as human beings and lost to the Creator who may not be able to find His brightness because it is not our brightness. This brightness is only lent to us for a nominated period of time.

Maybe the makers of these applications will be asked by God to breathe life into their innovations in the end.

 “Oh I will have that, “She will say.

“Find one with blue eyes for lens transplant, I am rather tired of my eye colour,” They might say.

They say.

Keep your head down and keep moving.

 Grimly, we will live in fear of demonstrating any ability at all for fear that individual natural abilities; individual qualities which render us diverse, one from another will be reaped for the sake of self- enhancement.

Is this the precedence the world wants to set for the future?

Good men remain silent and I am only a woman who puts herself on the frontline everyday.

I am supposed to be nurtured by a man – a glove for me. I think this is how it has been described – that man is a cover for the woman. I am not supposed to worry about these issues. I am not even trained to do so.

Over to you.

Is this your proposed world order of enterprise and entrepreneurship, a world of trading personages and humans in the guise of harmless looking icons on your desktop?

And you wait for a messiah to deliver you?

Or perhaps you are of the group who attempts to block out the sky with your applications so that he doesn’t appear at all?

It’s that time. The time to escape up the mountains.

My brain is sold online. Rooting up the nose, Hair torn from my head.

The equivalent action to a beheading.

Now legislate for that if you believe that a human being should be free.

The future of such-like predators with full access to human physique, human organs, human capacity, mindset and spirit, for sale like products for the purposes of self enhancement, is this the future you envisage? Never mind, a deficit of mind or character – no need to work it out in interaction, spiritual soul seeking or otherwise. In fact, the woman of the future will be able to buy the specified enhancement to make up for her deficiency by software application. The poor and lowly will be incinerated.  The human race may be put to use for the elitist few for the sake of false notions of bondage conducted through loans and debt collection, whether you pay or whether you don’t pay up – it won’t matter. Physical features controlled by applications. Software to widen the hips, stretch the feet, pries foot bones apart until it hurts to walk. Software applications marketed on the black market. The beautiful, the intelligent, those who exhibit hearty responses, aesthetic feeling. Wired by chip. The ATM card, the credit card, the social welfare cards for use as potential track devices. Sold at the ATM machine to the nearest bidder. Going, going, gone – how about that?

Is this the future you wish the human race to subscribe to? Rhetorically no.

International legislation referring to property, ownership and intellectual rights require a complete revision.

There is a new phase of trading organs online. The buyer gets to control the body part according to the conditions of the transaction. Natural acts of swallowing, coitus, arm movements, leg movements controlled by app. Capabilities controlled by app to supersede their own deficits. If I don’t like myself, I can buy another self.

You know what?

I am not the enemy.

When I was a little girl, I used to stare at a little boat carrying the Hebrew slaves. The boat carries a vivid memory in my brain. The oars, the dark heads, symbolic of struggle and the ability to overcome power with forward arm movements.

I am not Jewish, but I admire their struggles and there are lessons to be learned from every nation.

Every day is a struggle to live for me. I was almost jumped at the bridge today. I passed a ju-ju man sitting on a step, wearing blue – as blue as you like.

The scanner they gave me works well.

I think I frightened him off.

Parsed DNA

Brain wipe outs.

‘It’s easy,’ They said. ‘Just press on the head of the picture.
Through the phone. It’s as simple as that. It causes momentary lapse in memory. You, know, forgetfulness.’
They give the command, ‘Adapt.’
‘Then they parse the DNA kernel, slice by slice. Then they follow-up by examining the components – on the equivalent of a 21st century CD and, hey presto, you can be empowered.’
‘Here ye all. Make a great man or woman. Explore all the men or women you admire. First, capture the collective essences by app. Next, record whatever you caught on a synthetic DNA material recorder and abracadabra, once you’re plugged in, through a process of ionic transfer, you can be empowered as one of the greatest persons in the world.’
‘But what about intellectual rights? Ethical, moral value, that sort of thing?’
It is an expensive procedure now – almost like going to the doctor.
‘I want to exchange my attributes for hers,’ You can say.’ I want to be queen.’
The Neo-Physicist will say, ’Why, yes of course. What is it you need?’
‘Now this process demands a lot of people stalking and shadowing, to get the feel for the person you admire, to capture the essence of the person you would like to be, so that you can be infused.
Dangerous work. But, we have people everywhere. We work it through intelligence agencies, really. Employed as private detectives – actually.
After all, there are enough people saving the world, aren’t there?’
‘But doesn’t this activity spark envy?’
‘Well, no. In fact, the person for exploration is stalked, which under normal circumstances is a scary activity. But we have technology. We have devised a kind of avatar – a screen, you might like to call it, so that the ‘stalker’ cannot be seen by the human eye. You know, like the Invisible Man- same sort of idea. I am not sure how they do it.’

Defying feats of ethical defeat!

It’s a little like the empty glass and the full glass syndrome, He said.
Theoretically, you can fill empty people with ‘full’ people.
The full person’s parsed DNA is violated – a little – through ionic exchange of course – a process of scientific infusion. A bit like the Aryan race concept.

A bit dangerous, really.

A defeat for the human race.

Invented by a misogynist and almost worn by a Sphinxite.

Hannibal had no idea.

Frightening.

What about God’s plan?

It is a question of ownership

It is a rare thing to meet a real free person. Most people are owned by someone or something. Slaves, we call it. So if a person is enslaved, is that person really responsible for what is said,or for what is done?

It all depends on the nature of the master, really. The master is the driving force, albeit,ideological. And so it is, the slave is programmed to follow orders.

Introducing a phenomenon:woman- owned by man and lent out to all a sundry. The reason- it is about control really. This woman has been pronounced guilty in another nation and yet we find her hiding in our midst.
But, she is owned, and lent out to many.
Bought and paid for.
Like the shopping.

Chilling.

A slave. Captured because she fell,or maybe she didn’t. Behaves like the oppressor and does the same. Captures by app.
Guilty.
Nocturnal raids.
Guilty.

A Mercenary, I believe. An Ex member of an organisation…

But, do you know something?

There is no such thing as a Free-lance. There always has to be a lurking affiliation with a mission.

And the truth lies just there…

Paid by one of ours.

To take out-to take down-eliminate…A Mercenary with a certain belief system, fueled and driven by the pay check.

“She is a terminal.” She pronounced.

And if she can’t get you, she maps relationships -the nearest and dearest.

For every victory, she reaps hair from the head of the victim.

She makes extensions out of it. Like a fox brush. Her trophy, she calls it.

Of course, The Fox is the owner. But she is married-simultaneously- a few times.

Bigamy really.

She is blond, I believe.

He likes her like that-the Fox.

Infiltrator. Works with the Orderly there. You know, the man who lives above the students.

Now that needs serious monitoring.

No ethics at all. No dealings with this person at all.

None.

Lock down.

Go bhfoire Dia orainn.

Ceard a ceapainn sibh mar gheall ar sin?

Na bac, ar chor ar bith.

Victory

Victory by Bridin Ui Con Midhe, Bint Zayed

‘Any further barrage of anti Biddyism, words of anti- kindness or otherwise, will be noted…and dealt with much later. ‘They pontificated.
‘A zero tolerance for hatred, zero tolerance for put downs, condescending remarks, personal attacks or any other unacceptable miffed remarks or…. otherwise. Not even a pun!’

‘She is, so leave her to be. ‘They said.

Biddy is certified. Certified with sanity…and a few degrees as well. Actually, Biddy has rank. She reminds herself often that she stands and that she refuses to sit on anyone’s Kabunga Street.

She is here to work. In fact, her certs were hard won. It wasn’t easy at all for her, as she was, bent in struggle. Imbued with imbuements, as she was.
The microchip in her back gives off electrical signals to tell her to stop every now and then. Newfangled Insertables; the latest in Artificial Intelligence. The Divergents are already using them to replace the ID card system. Imagine, a population of 9.9 blah million, bleeping in unison!

The boss clicks on her app., right there on her telephone and….ziss….the signal is given to stop any (perceptually) non-conformist Biddy behaviour. You might find Biddy in mid sentence, blitzed with a ziss to stop.

Ouch!

I advocate common lessons in acoustics. Bleeping in harmony is recommended. You know what-we could have common chide alerts and thereafter coin actions of Ouch Therapy.

Yes!

Don’t say this, don’t do that. PING! OUCH! Therapy!
We could instigate an electric shock hour. Behaviourist Theory. Zing! Think about the repercussions of that!
I suppose you have heard about it.

Anyway, that is what we call, going off at a tangent. Rather angular that!

As for the super neural wiring system in Biddy’s brain, well, it picks up every sound, like the key in Biddy’s door- sensor sensitive, to know every word, every sound, Biddy can do or think of. Last prognosis, there were lesions there.

Burp!

And when she puts her feet on the ground, it goes right through her…actually that is a bit of an exaggeration.

The Significant Others tried marginalization and isolation techniques and all kinds of polarization, including innovative disdainful looks, resentful quips and the accusatory,
“You are not, you are not”… and then, “You are, you are,” whichever was closer in proximity to the intended personal agenda; the Biddy Out agenda.

Raids. Mapping relationships-that sort of thing, and most of all, violations. Serious violations.

Cowardly really, to be seen sneaking around at night.

Anyway, Biddy simply just would not terrorize. It didn’t matter what they tried to do. Their anger did not want to lodge in her at all.

If Biddy had owned a pair of shiny red shoes, perhaps she could have defied the in-house Wicken and clicked her heels to parachute to Paradise.

Whoosh.

I can just about hear the construed street demonstration of the Cultural Others,’ Biddy, Biddy, Biddy, Out, Out, Out.’ She imagined.
These are the renditions of some Con Artist woman uprooted from a Lah Lah Land and given sustenance, after partaking in benevolence and supported by a snitch-who became the boss.

And I have to kow tow to that! A woman of neither breeding nor knowledge, and somewhat devoid of light, except from what she earns from the app. on her phone, according to who she downloads. A collector of haloes…Wanted by the FVI…Let us say no more about that. Even John Fitzgerald, Head of the FVI had to cradle his Forensics linguistically to protect himself from casting the first shadow. And he is derived from the tribe of Mac Gearailt.

That is what THEY said about her. All constructed in fun…of course.

She pledged, ‘Here to do a job. Mission, to oust the Biddy. How? By any possible means, underhand, overarm or otherwise.’ (I forgot to tell you, she bought her degree in Sears-great bargain, just %9.95.)
The People of the Bucket nearly sunk in dismay. The US were disgusted. BMAT’s orders. Apparently she’s a cohort and part of Dastardly’s Team of The Convoluted Treacherous Euphoric.

And we all know how they got that name!

The Leftwingers roared,” Do not demonize our Biddy!”

That is how it all started.

InterPol collectively broke their hearts laughing. They didn’t know which way to turn.
“You are judgmental,’ They quipped and she was still waiting for the work, because Her Highness had placed obstacles in the way, so that Biddy could not demonstrate her superior prowess.

While she was still working things out, Biddy was getting the work done. Mind you, Chink eye watched through the hole to see what she could pick up. Advised by InterPol, of course…

“She refuses to go to Guantanimo, it’s not her cup of tea,’ Said Interpol as he blew a bubble of chicklet.

Reeeeeeallllly.

‘I heard about what happens there. ‘Said Chink. ‘Even Mrs. Brown says it’s bad. They keep tapes of her shows there, I heard. Raucous carry on.’
‘Orange is the colour there…an orange uniform, orange. I wonder where they buy it from?’ Deliberated Chink.

“I suppose I will have to clean up the occult again this evening.” Thought Biddy.
“Numbers. Chiffres. And she ordered them there…” Said Biddy.

I suppose we will have a re-match next term…thought Biddy. Biddy is poised.
But she asks one thing…
‘Don’t vilify your Biddy,’ She says.
‘I work for you,’ She says.

‘Demonization. That is what they want to do with me.’ She thinks…
‘Because… I want to live a normal life, marry, love, that sort of thing.
Is that wrong?’ Biddy ponders.

Strategy number eleven, Family of the Land of the Ever Young…
Strategy number eleven is to slander, run, and then to throw muck at the aforesaid to see whether it sticks or not!

Hey, news has just come in to say that Biddy was seen at Ibn Mattata Mall talking to a tree.

Signing off…. I have to pray…
Biddy calls for the world community to sort this one out, UVF, IRB, InterPol or any other interest, or interested group for that matter. She is not particularly enamored by the Central Investigation Authority, the FVI have a much cleaner cloud!

Maybe it is their Charter…Philosophy. It is all about Philosophy. She thinks that she must have a word with them about that.

Really!

Anyway, Biddy is poised for the second half…
Let us see what happens next…

Perhaps a conversation with Donald is in the offing…

For the sake of Allah, keep with the process. I implore you!

Shall we?

Champions of Trivia, Are We?

Tags

Rhetoric

Champion raised perhaps by those convened to power and rendered a champion by forces of quip and blunder while despots wrangle to shut the door, until the gleaming posts no longer radiate smooth alabaster structured whole?

When obstacles of splendour are rendered tall by the powerful and the meek one is found between  concave triadic reflections.

The light of champions is waning in the shadows of those of narcissistic interest and we are told to take stance, to lead, but to what use?

Goodness does not have a side, so then how should we convene, when right wing volatile plagiarism staves away truth to construct strife, goodness is lost and the black door of Georgian Dublin is heralded through a keyhole of left wing palavers. And what is that?

Karbala, A Time to Walk and Remember

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There was the space of a corridor through the divide at the facility where I worked. He worked on the other side of the wall.

 I could hear everything in his head – a certain ability I had cultivated in recent years which I attribute to a kind of elevated sense of spirituality I had experienced as a result of repeated severe trauma to the head.

Perhaps it was a trick of the light but what I had seen had made me cry.

 If Zulfikar had been elevated to the sky, then a sword of rose gold appeared to have hung from his waist. His waist appeared to be bloody, almost severed in the light of the doorway of the facility. That is what I had imagined at that time.

Habitually in attendance at work, sitting in my office at the door of the facility with the lights off, pretending to myself that I was not really there because I knew that my employment was about to be terminated, that my services were no longer required.

I knew that the very same man had been told certain things about me and that he had accepted everything he had heard about me without referring to me or anyone else for verification. He had relied on the testimonies of others he knew, whom he trusted implicitly, a matter of a kind of proximity to him, of those who had actively sought his favour – adept as they were at file swapping in terms of attributions of quality and character.

There was no proximity at all between work stations, remote as they were. The long space of corridor demarcating our work stations was in darkness because I had a lights off policy at that time. I barely saw anyone at work, in fact  there was no one on the floor to talk to, to refer to, or to banter with.

Occasionally, the front glass door would shake at the force of a prospective visitor who would try to enter. For the most part, I pretended not to be there until the door shaking would stop.

It was in this self-indulged silence that I heard him. He yelled that word right from his middle, deliberately directed towards the corner as I sat ensconced in research and development work in yet another focused attempt to strategize and formulate material no one was ready to accept.

The resonance of the word remains with me until now. I am finding it hard to pull up, so deep was the illocutionary force of the utterance on me. It was a lanced word which speared me. It was the little girl in me who barely had the time to grow up.

‘ Whore,’ he had said.

This had been his pronouncement on me after two brief conversations and without a formal introduction.

Whore.

White tinsel.

A remark which rather bewildered me considering that I wore black to work everyday. Covered in head to toe in  black with occasional face coverings in enclosed environments at any given particular moment of induced functional male presence.

 The effort it takes to wear this clothing…

Apparently, the term white tinsel is akin to white trash – the kind of woman who sleeps around wilfully with men. I believe that the expression is rather passe, but I think this is what he might have meant.

I wonder whether the incurred term whore depends on the number or the diversity of the kinds of people in terms of the afore mentioned. I imagine that the term whore is inherent to the earnings from, men and women who can perform feats of varied positioning that apparently normal men and women cannot do to satiate conditions of lust.

I know that it is a derogatory term, that it is meant as an insult – an insult that rattled me.

I had never been called a whore in my life.

 I had been faithfully married – that is if one considers marriage as a contractual agreement to consent to intimate relations for a period of time in the presence of legal witnesses – albeit until death do us part. Such a contracted agreement cannot be construed as an agreement to conspire to whoredom – the difference between a whore and married woman – I should think.

Although I have heard stories of men who have fallen in love with such women – with countless fatal histoires of love and demise and without a single contract at all. Are women then not entitled to legality? Love and legality have their place, after all. At least, the Prophet of Islam was not enamoured by temporary marriages – a matter of stability perhaps.

I have cited Sahih Muslim hadith over and over again with reference to the hadith forbidding man to compel woman to whoredom. In fact, ‘gift marriage’ has been outlawed – which amounts to the marriage of women without  consent – which amounts to a ‘you’ – ‘me’ here now.

I heard a story recently about such trafficked women, compelled to whoredom – who spend entire summer days on the beach, covered in sea water in the hope of avoiding clientele, terrified that they would be put to use – are they not worthy of the best of labels ascribed to those who tried to protect their private parts from harm?

What about men and women who are trafficked without their consent, those who are wilfully forced and compelled into whoredom?

Can we consider these men and women in use as whores? They have not intended to be. They live in fear.

In fact, I have never heard any little girl or boy ever say – I want to be a whore when I grow up.

Ever.

Marriage has its place, contractual arrangements, civil arrangements and religious ceremonies are optional.

There are innocent women and men enslaved in a wretched sense of obedience founded in fear and loss and grief  and in hopelessness, who die as their usage expires in pools of semen in the throes of forced acts of violence.

Women are for pleasure – they say.

 And so innocent lives are used up and piled on an unidentified truck to be flung in mass graveyards. A martyr told me so.

It is said that some of these women and men find fatality at the end of a rusty nail so that the effect goes straight to the heart and the human system is overcome with festered blood poisoning.

Or the story recounted of the woman who refused sexual relations with a stranger, electrically wired to batteries inserted into her genital area until she learned to do as she was told.

Or the story narrated about a sixteen year old girl kidnapped from inside the wall of the garden palace for collateral use to control men of righteous power – to bring scandal about via the fall of their women.

Or a beloved daughter brought to an isolation room under the guise that she was there for training. She had sung desperately for her life. Her organs had been enlarged by software applications, her beautiful gentle shape had been altered to ready her for intimate activity which most people would consider innocuous. Shot with a bullet in the mouth because it had been decided that she just was not suitable for their line of work.

She was brought to the city morgue and lived in a drawer for some time.

Or her cousin who escaped from her mother’s compound to find out what happened to her sister and who did not return but was found knocked up in a country far from her origin?

Or the noble girl of prophetic lineage who kept copious physics notes in a green A4 notebook who was raped because she was too clever – she might have raised a society?

Or the girl who sat for her Chemistry examination with a gun to her head just to make sure that her score was lower than an A which would put her above the scope of traffic activity.

Or the girl who was kidnapped from her mother at the age of eight years old while her mother turned her back for a split second to address an issue that distracted her?

She gifted me with a periwinkle shell from her grave I keep in my purse.

Or the girls sold for intimate activity at the local petrol station while the cars lined up for car wash, without a break and without the opportunity to make the holy wash – the stench of sex of multiple partners.  Drugged as she was out of awareness to serve lines of cars and occasionally sent out for jaunts into the desert.

No-one ever knew whether or not they would return to live another day.

Or the girl who had a gaseous colon because of repeated entry into her back passage as she had begun to loose control over her bowel movements?

Or the girl who had been married and lent out to strangers –  gang-raped and then kicked to death for being promiscuous – at the order of a man old enough to be her father? A child bride. Her bravery is unsung.

Apparently she was buried according to protocol…

Or the girl who experienced excruciating torture and damage to her genital area pummelled repeatedly and abrasively because her nature was too sweet?

Such were the desert roses.

Such was the forthright young woman, a rookie member of a private mercenary corporation who was brainwashed into thinking that sexual activity was part of her training. She had almost died in an extended try-out period conducted on the premises that the character of an individual can be encapsulated in the behaviour of that individual engaged in intimate relations.

Or what about the girls kept in suburbia and brought to the city for activity in the boots of cars – threatened that they would be thrown off the roof of the building if they did not perform accordingly?

Or the girl kept against her will behind a restaurant door for use, marked by a crossed set of brooms, sold for use because the restaurant owner had lost a lot of money during the COVID -19 period.

Or the girls used for organ transplant or surrogate activity – who think that they have done something wrong – forced to carry the children of people they have never met before? Burned with candles and maimed with severed limbs, hands and legs, enslaved and never able to break free.

Or the girl who delivered her baby and expected death because she is not useful during her 40 days of her period of bleeding.

Or the girl at the petrol pump who was made to drink petrol through the pump holder until she did as she was told. She almost died of poisoning.

Or the children sold on a city main street by their mother, taught to scream to demonstrate their sexual strength.

Or the girls who hid under a manhole cover underground to avoid a fate worse than death – such is the state of their sensitivity? Or her sister who stood with her bitten by a rat until her arm began to fester.

Or the woman who volunteered her services to lead them out of harm’s way? She deserves a medal of honour.

Or the girl who floated to the top of a water tank after almost being drowned because she was not allowed to live. Her arrival to the world had passed unannounced because no one knew about her existence and no one would know about her death if it were to be ordered.

Real people left the building in black, plastic refuse bags – in pieces without even a mark of a refuse category on the bag.

There had been a rank smell of flesh on the staircase which had the habit of wafting up to my bathroom. That is how I knew.

 I remember Auswitz and the woman in the gas chamber who earned heaven because she safeguarded her modesty and the modesty of her son, until her life ran out – because her existence on earth was not authorised by those who wielded power at that time.

I remember Rouqueya, the child martyr who had asked – what is this liquid running between my legs after she had been defiled?

The people in the apartment downstairs did a lot of cooking to rid the premises of sinews and bloodied body parts- even parts of my own entrails..

I used to yell ‘Stop,’ in the middle of the night. The wire tore on the window from continuous slamming to indicate some kind of dissent with what was happening.

All they could do was to indicate danger to their community with the sign of Anubis from hell stalked out on the roof.

The smell made me sick to my stomach. We pretended it wasn’t happening. Denial is grief – struck.

Nocturnal raids of rape and cannibalistic force-feeding of human flesh.

Or the presence of an isolation facility in the apartment above my own. Loud sounds on the roof. Staring eyes through the A/C unit at night haunted our sleep.

The staring eyes of young girls brought out before their time to strange men who wished them harm. The staring eyes of young women who did not know whether they were going to live or die.

An experimental interrogation facility. Soft interrogation equipped with an isolation room upstairs.  A middle floor of lock – ups and the reception of the book of the dead on the bottom floor. Hard interrogation in the building behind and the light of dead spirits whirling in incredulous fright.

Scream after scream after scream raised the blackness of the night.

‘Mama!’

Even the birds heard it.

Suffered, suffering extreme physical abuse of no reprieve.

Plastic drinking bottles of blood from blood transfusion activity.

Itchy skin from the removal of skin for skin graft activity from the inner thighs, inner elbows and other areas of sensitivity of the body.

A mind-set marketed on the internet to intercept thought waves. The ownership of thoughts, of crushed foot bones, of microchipped spinal cords, throat sensory and senses sensory equipment.

Sudden disappearances, marks of human fluid –of an orange hue marking the rape of virgins.

The severity of trauma.

Or the girl of a yellow pallor who eats like a bird with crumbs on the innocence of her lips with eyes that tell the abhorrence she has experienced at such a young age.

Or the woman who floated ashore in a dingy who refused to come out of the water because she knew that the line of men standing near the wall who played loud music were wolf- like and ready to pounce on her once she put a foot on dry land.

Or the girl who was kept locked up under the stairs by her father in the hope that her existence would not be known – malformed due to the lack of light.

Or the girl who returned from school every day with a driver who raped her everyday –too ashamed to tell anyone, who put up and shut up. She loss her sense of self expression.

All living off the same existence, the same identity, mannerisms, education and personality traits.

Or the girl kidnapped for collateral and substituted with lookalikes and spies to the point that the mother could not recognise one from the other. In  fright, day after day she wondered if she would ever see her real daughter again.

Or the mother who thought that she delivered a single baby and while under anaesthesia, the second was carried out and broken in as soon as she was born. Perhaps she was never heard of again. Her mother did not know of her existence until it was too late.

Periodic disappearances mark her existence in the life of the mother and code switch replacements were programed to live the same identity in a kind of in-lieu existence. When she brought the matter to the attention of the police, they said she was mad.

Or the unwanted agent of a failed mission – who got it wrong who was trafficked and brought to a silo farm  – as it is called in the business – a God  forsaken place where agents meet their end.

Or the young woman who is repeatedly drugged and forced to engage in intimate activity with animals. The plea of the animals has been heard. Her womb will not churn – this is her resistance.

Or men with prophetic traits slugged and snailed along the ground during nocturnal raids, sodomized along the car lanes of the tyre factory, abandoned and left for dead simply because they refuse the promiscuity of this world order.

A woman raised her face to heaven and screamed: ‘Daughter of Khulwaid, daughter of Khadija, daughter of the Hashemite, daughter of the House of David’ in the hope that saints would hear.

The daughter who had walked between the hills of Safa and Marwa.

Or the young noble, kidnapped and forced to work out of a hotel room. Her parents refused to take her back. It was a matter of honour. They said.

Or the kidnapped girl who held her sides in pain as she haemorrhaged because of repeated rape because she came from an upright family in the society – a just too good to be true type.

Or the woman who had almost every bone in her body broken because she believes in love and is not interested in cheap brief encounters.

My little girl. Your little girl. Our little girls bred without streetwise savvy – yet another Karbala.

‘Mama,’ They shout. ‘Mama,’ They yell. They scream.

Surrogated and incubated until the load of delivery gives out to the diversity of motherhood.

Buried with yellow flowers along the boulevard.

I lost a little girl once.

And then the next fresh consignment of the trafficked populous is brought to bear.

Innocents die and they ask: ‘For what sin did I earn this end?’

My heart breaks.

The blood of a dear one sometimes runs without stopping.

Or for that matter, actions against a baby boy – frenzied as such because of the precious substance of his DNA – in a war of saints more than a thousand years old.

So yes, I am insulted and offended. 

The word used was’ whore’.

I imagine the residue of the word whore will fester in that corner until the day of judgment because I will not let it pass at all.

 As if I had been wounded in a war that I did not begin.

Too much blood. Scrapes on the ground covered with sand.

As I write this, there is a ring on my finger. A ring of a certain kind of recognition, of the bond of love of an entire family who love me unconditionally, a family whose fate has been intertwined for hundreds of years.

As I write, as I live in this minute I refer to the ring on my finger, its stability rises on my finger.

The meaning behind a simple gold ring – of a deep and meaningful friendship.

And no, I am not a whore at all and neither are they who have suffered on this account.

What about the woman who delights in the idea of affair because her marriage has lost spice or perhaps it never had any to begin with who acts on a friend’s suggestion to have a fling?

What about the woman who allows an extra-martial concern to enter her husband’s house to fling about in deceit and without the knowledge of her husband?

 He may have married her to avoid a nose ring.

What about the man who reaps married or unmarried women for his repertoire – to add to his personality or to build his mission – a woman for every season?

What about the man who lures women and in moments of weakness woman falls?

 ‘Whore,’ He had said.

 Easy to say when your hand may have been laced with silver dinars.

It is Ashura, a time to remember genocides and martyrs and so I live to remember.

And no, I am not a whore at all.

Did heaven hear me?

I hope so. My struggle has been tool long and too hard.

BMH 20/08/2021

Not without my daughter

It was a flash second of a sock placed strategically over a hole in the ground in the workshop underneath the apartment where I live. Yet another illegal detention centre nodded and winked at me. Illegal detention centers to take people out in degrees – anyone who might show any kind of extraordinary ability to whittle the truth out of a human being. To promote changeling activity, the body snatch replacement – the activity I have nominated as the twindular phenomenon – somewhat similar to the Angelina Jolie film, ‘Changeling’ – an FBI thriller I saw some years back. Clever that. Grow an identical twin via android and replace the ‘real’ person with a lookalike or a surrogated version of a person’s ID. Plotted years in advance. The truth they live by. I walk to work everyday – I love the walk and the stretch and the stomp. I take pictures of the scenery as I walk. I have also developed the habit of a sleuth and have fine honed my aesthetic sense to the extent that when something is wrong, I figure it out very quickly. I decided that every thing has a face, both inanimate and animate objects including buildings. If I am to stand and stare at a building, its surface comes out to me and in a sense, I can know what that face might mean and what activity might be happening in the building I look at. I looked behind a media building the other day and I saw a darkened grill in the place of windows. As I walk down the street, I find that the security presence is high – but not of the policing or military kind. An armed guard with an AKA outside a media centre does not make  a lot of sense. The other day, I thought I heard a woman screaming, there are women missing from our tribe and I was concerned. I took pictures of the location, careful not to violate Federal Law 3/1987 which disallows photography of people. There is no sign or indication not to take photographs on the street. A little further down, there is an old dilapidated building where the culture and heritage centre used to be. Strangely, although no one appears to live there, there was a marked presence outside the building of two workmen who carried instruments in a steel box through the gateway. I could not see exactly what these instruments were. As I walked down the street, I was stopped by the armed guard to ask what I was doing there. Having taught English language in a military zone, I had enough experience to know that the particular zone I was standing in was not a high priority area. I was then followed back to work. He knocked at the glass door and I greeted both him and his entourage ushering them to enter. He asked to see my phone and I willfully did as I was told. In retrospect, by UAE law, I do not have to consent to show my phone to anyone. If I do not consent, then to take my phone is a violation of privacy, a chargeable offense of imprisonment with an ensuing fine according to penal code Federal Law 3/1987, articles 12 and 14. According to UAE cyber laws, I do not have to divulge secrets regarding information.  What I know is for me as I choose.  Since the onset of COVID, lockdown means lockdown here. There are soft touch detention centers here – like the workshop underneath my building. The stench of electricity emanating from the building reeks. They got it to me that a young woman is being tortured and kept under ground. My mind’s eye showed a pink sock over the hole in the ground. I know this girl. They nearly killed her. I stayed awake all night listening to screams and kicks and the sounds of fire extinguishers and iron being thrown, chairs dragging and doors knocking ajar. This is peace time. The young girl is a minor and underage according to the legal structures of this country. She is a school girl. There is a Geneva convention in existence. Attacked every day and what have we done to deserve their incessant raiding? Targeted by Egyptian intelligence for nearly 20 years without a valid reason at all. What have we done to wake up in the morning with bruises and broken bones? We are under siege. The girl is not Palestinian, she is not a Jewess, but she looks like someone I know. She is Egyptian like them. I got a snapshot of the two women beside the blackened window – the women who gave the orders to make this beautiful young woman scream.  I got a snapshot of her. It was the sound of the drill that did it. Every day is a blessing here – to wake up alive is a blessing. Perhaps I remember the drill and the smell of electricity wires on my chest. I woke up with two implants in my mouth after the experience – root canaled during a nocturnal raid as I was – but I survived. My mouth and my system is completely wired. I will not be quiet.

Polygamy – again

I figured out something today. I kept thinking about the polygamous marriages and about how women manage to overcome the related man-sharing issues. For myself, I do not enter at all into any issues at all, not even one. The reason for this is that I think jealousy might overcome me and jealousy is a horrible feeling – it eats away at good deeds like dry rot. Jealousy is a damaging emotion which can make the heart bleed. It leaves a raw prickly feeling on the right side of the left side of the heart. In fact, jealousy in religion is not permitted with the exception of jealousy of wealth and jealousy of a given religious status. In a dichotomous marriage, the second woman is always the subject of attack. The second woman suffers the eye of the husband and the first woman – equivalent to an onslaught from a team. The man in the equation keeps looking to retrieve favored qualities in the second woman to teach the first woman how to be the same, to the extent that sometimes the second woman feels as if she has been raided and is left bereft of that which she finds endearing about herself, without a return of energy. This kind of interaction causes a woman to fall. I remember Hafsa, so full of ability she was, that her father told her to ‘stay down’ for the sake of Aisha, the mother of the believers and the other wives. How difficult that must have been for these ladies. Aisha was in the habit of bequeathing her husband. He had to be given away every so often whether she liked it or not. She tried to hide Maimunah from him, but it didn’t work. Rasulallah married her anyway. For the first woman, there is the realization that her man is not hers. There can be no ownership on him at all. Whether she likes it or not, she most probably will have to share him. Woman has to train herself to yield, not to control the presence or the whereabouts of man. In fact, it is better not to ask about his whereabouts at all. I could extend this notion further and say that the whereabouts of man is not the concern of the first woman when he is out. However, man is her concern during the time when he presents himself to her – wholly.  Nagging ‘whys’ and ‘wherefores’ do not cut ice at all. In fact, the first woman requires a great deal of emotional and spiritual strength. Man may complain that the other women in his life have no virtue, indeed he may request your advice about such and such a matter, or contrarily influence you to pronounce a punishment. The thing to do is to remain absolutely impartial so as not to be in a position to cause him to fall.

 Is there a remedy to this situation? There is always a reason for a second marriage. In the 21^st Century the reasons are usually fiscal or beneficial in terms of characteristics which may allow the first lady to advance. The remedy lies here – the trick is to remain absolutely emotionally detached from the situation – to treat your man as a noble visitor, but know in your mind that he is a raider, that he comes to see what he can earn from you – without an iota of love at all. I think about hadith an Nabawi – the first hadith about intention. The man or woman who journeys towards man or woman will have as he intended. On this account, the second woman must be staid and firm to locate herself in a confined sense of self. I visualize a bottle of overflowing liquid and the efforts we expound to save the bottle from spilling over. The second woman must contain herself to ensure that she is the one to benefit. It seems that local women indigenous to the UAE are practiced in this field of behaviour – located in their quiet fervor and closed quiet life styles. It may be that that our proverbial man resents the time he has allocated to spend on you, fueled by the anger of the first woman and followed by a barrage of criticisms beginning with – you are not, you are not, you are not and then comparisons of grandeur! Ladies, lower your heads and listen without a single word. As you prepare for your visit, compose your script in such away that words of praise are imminent to the interaction. A heartful greeting is a good thing. I have a notion that a woman’s man is guarded somehow under the left rib cage. Supposing you know that your man is with the other woman – what do you do? Sit and sulk and wait for him to return and then find fault in everything in him. I think about Chomsky’s linguistic parameter switches. Can someone research the location of the receptor of criticism to deflect male criticism? For me at least, verbal and non-verbal male criticism is the most debilitating form of neglect a woman can experience. If so, then I will tell you quite frankly that critical appraisals of such nature are not healthy at all.

After years of experience in visit preparation, I find that the correct thing to do is to put something flashy at the front door, so that man does not see you when he returns to you, rather he sees the flashy thing and not you – to lead his eye astray so to speak and to give him a chance to adjust. It is true that man is likely to express a state of annoyance at the interruption of having to come back to you, or frustration that you do not have the quality of the first woman. In such cases as these, quietude and plenty of space is the response until the annoyance subsides. The sense of the other woman is still in vogue all around him, so I recommend keeping out of his way entirely until he settles into the background at your home. Better still, if he goes out on a visit, find something interesting to do so that you feel entirely refreshed and clear when he comes back. Above all, hold on the ‘lovey dovey’, unless he requests it. There are some women who handle this sort of thing quite well, however, I think that I might not be able to handle endless lists of comparisons about who is prettier than who, who has more beautiful eyes, or hair or legs or skin.

My response would simply be this – balaclava.

Yes. Balaclava covering the entire face and head – so that no fault can be found at all with anyone at all – to put form on the issue.

Staff wellbeing – keeping the side up

Human relationships are fascinating. If my interaction with another human being falls on a closed heart, then it is like pouring water over a stone without any effect. Sometimes it is worth the effort to interact through all cadences of finality, not forgetting tonic syllables via the range of struck cords of inter harmony we strike out in conversation with others. I remember what it felt like as I stood on the Mount of Arafat. As I focused on my prayers, I moved my lips and mouth, the first openings of the body. As my fervor rose, my chest began to open and I could see what resided within. I remember looking down at my chest as if I could actually see what I felt. A great comfort overcame me followed by a light weight feeling. I did not want to leave the place at all. Now, as I sit in self-imposed isolation trying to figure myself out vis a vis my relationship with the world, and what or whom I can accept into my life, I think that fervent interaction might have the same open effect – if I could manage to get up off the chair. After all, the potential to interact is everywhere, given the locus of people. Heart-felt interaction potentially opens down to the solar plexus to receive from another human being without fear – that is the ideal kind of interaction required in order that we can actually call ourselves human.  It is difficult to obtain this effect in a short conversation or encounter – but then again, quality interaction depends on the intention of the interactants – a forethought or a forestatement. At least this is how I have been trained. But this takes a great deal of effort. Some people are more flexible and fearless – tending to demonstrate a go with the flow approach. I have to admit that these channels of thought are distinctly different ways of thinking. The latter might be preferable, but it  demands a rigorous approach to risk- assessment. I have to know what benefit I will receive before I begin to enter into a conversational encounter with anyone. What about the – it’s just for fun – sort of people. Well, some people say that it is better to take people as you find them. I have to say that I cannot move with these kinds of people. I do not know where to go with these kinds of people and these days, I am not one for aimless frivolity. When I was a young woman, I was more adventurous. In fact, I did not mind at all – I moved with people. I talked and laughed and danced up the mountain and down to the sea. That is what we do as we engage in interaction with others – we move – like Leonard Cohen’s Dance Me to the End of the World Song – but I am not supposed to listen to that. Our interactions are punctuated with rise and fall glots in the exploration of the others we choose to interact with. There must be an outcome to interaction – the outcome of firm footing, otherwise interaction is pointless – transactional interaction – at least on a professional level. Elliptic really! Conversations on a cloud are rather a mustering of transcendental gumption. I must say that I do not like to leave any conversation hanging in the air, especially if I am coming to grips with an idea. At all costs communication must be hacked out. Interaction generates love and loving demands heartful effort, doesn’t it? The tag question is not intended as a rhetorical question, rather as an affront or a leading duress to channel the thought of any given individual prone to nonsensical lark after a hard day’s work – which I am given to, now and again!

Put downs…

Gift horse

Some people are donned with spiritual gifts. You know, like people who are psychic.  I think that human beings are born with equal capacities and capabilities. Perhaps DNA influences the strengths and weaknesses a person might have. But nurture wins over to ultimately influence the impact of learning and what a person might become in terms of what a person can do. I presume that psychic abilities are not cultivated, except through a progressive continuous access of the use of this quality. People talk about the sixth sense or the sense of intuition. I expect most people are born with a certain sense of intuition, but it takes a certain sensitivity to be able to access this quality. It might be that characteristics or qualities are appointed for a person as a mark of identity. It is difficult to say, since we really do not know how God manages his world. When I am reminded of the Prophets, I think that Prophethood is appointed for the specially chosen. God chooses his people and everyone is born with a code to mission for good or evil. Some people are coded to love and leave, others to harm, others are coded to be famous –this kind of thing in this vein of thought. Indeed, there are parameters of possible outcomes for the human being, in terms of actions and behaviour. Prophet Mohamed was considered trustworthy prior to the revelation as it came to him – frightened as he was, he hid under a blanket with fear. Moses was traveling with his family and his mission of Prophethood came through the burning bush. Abraham’s yearning for the presence of God as he searched the sun, the moon and stars for a conceptualization of God, came upon the realization of God. Joseph dreamed and was told by his father to keep it a secret. Jesus was appointed as a Prophet before his birth as the news, often called the good news, came to his mother Mary. Each Prophet is a godly appointment, a deliberation by God to put the right person in the place of leadership to lead communities as a reminder of the benevolence of god, that he is the almighty, there is no likeness unto him.  Divinity does not exist in the mind or heart of a human being. Divinity exists outside of the personage. The God of Moses, of Jesus, of Abraham does not exist in human beings, but our souls recognize him. Our souls reflect his light as we search for his presence. In matters of God’s revelation, the Prophets are infallible. But do remember that the Prophets are human beings. Prophethood is not just a matter of noble lineage, but lineage appears to be a consideration, existent in the DNA and handed down in some way. However, it seems that lineage is not a pre-requisite. After all, Adam, the first Prophet had no father. It may be that some tribes have earned God’s favor, indicative in the behaviour, thoughts and feelings of members of a given family tree. This is the matter of envy found in phrases like; what gives you the right to…? The days of Prophets are long gone and many of us live aimlessly on the remnants of a message that was, filtered and nullified by defeat, lies, and corruption. From time to time, a gifted person is born to lead – a struggle for these people in their fight to win over others who would sabotage their greater good out of such envy. We are told that spiritual envy is allowed, that we can contend with those of faith. However, we may not sabotage the goodness of another human being. To do so is to kernel evil. The days of holy jihad are gone. I believe holy jihad was a rite given to Aly (AS) as he was gifted with the sword of Zulfiqar to protect the Prophet of Allah. The day his grandson fell, was the day this rite was taken away from the world. Nowadays, there are many who attempt to slingshot the Goliath and not a human being will succeed, except for the truthful. For to be truthful is to aim straight and true with the eye and with the heart. I have heard people say that they revere the holy Prophet so much, that any likeness to him or his behavior is frowned on, to the extent that anyone exuding such prophetic behaviors, are deliberately sabotaged until the quality leaves them so to speak. An abhorrence of evil. It is a deliberation of evil to destroy qualities God almighty has created. It is a deliberation of evil to cleanse ethnically. It is a deliberation of evil to force a human being out of his or her natural responses, because God almighty did not ‘place’ evil inherent to the human being or human nature. People of insight are required in this world to identify these kinds of notions. We flippantly throw the word ‘weird’ about. We say things like, ‘She is weird, he is weird, it is so weird’ and it is not so. Gifted people are so often mistrusted, even though they are admired for what they do.

Nearly there…

The last pennies have been spent at the end of the month. Neo-laissez-faire attitudes are rife and the fittest are surviving, while weaker members of society, the most loving and the most gentle are beginning to lose the fight for life. Services are falling. Shop after shop is closed and not even with a no open sign. Voices are raised. The voices of men who wonder how they are going to feed their families. When a man shouts, there is something wrong. Once, when I was on duty at work, a man opened his car window to scream at another driver. It was an unwarranted scream, a definite sign that something was wrong. A man’s scream almost freezes the heart. It is not something a woman expects to hear, rather women expect sturdy, reliable strength. When a man screams or shouts with an edge in his tone, it means that something is happening in his life that he cannot, or will not talk about. I felt that the man had experienced a kind of defeat. The kind of defeat of being wrapped up in a situation one can never get out off. Today, someone mentioned dissociated identity disorder, a kind of multiple personality syndrome. Apparently, a person can develop a number of distinct personalities which overtake the self. I think that symptomatic of this disorder is the voice as it punctuates and changes pitch, marking experiences in life, present in the cadences and codas of the voice modulation. Psychologically, I believe that some individuals who experience stress shut down to respond to trauma, then the start -up is the innovation of a new personality to be able to adapt to the given life circumstances. The garbage cart trundles by – almost empty since there is little rubbish to collect.

Delivery men stand around hoping they will be called for a delivery and all of us are closer to the door about to slide. I remember one of the last scenes in Titanic as the aristocrats gathered on the top floor with the orchestra singing nearer my God to thee. The unsinkable boat heaved and creaked and the erect perpendicular hull to the water line began to disappear under the sea. They died with dignity. There is a sense of desperation as restaurant owners prepare menus and open their bright clean stores every night. But no one enters. The chef stands at the door of the restaurant in a starched, clean uniform. But no one enters. People have begun to appear unkempt. Children run up and down the mall and the sale of the one-dirham ice-creams is steady. I think that whether an economic depression is forecast or not, McDonalds will always do a tidy business. The owner of the mall I sit in looks from his office window on high. He has a halo around him. He must have done something right. Yet everything is going wrong. When a powerful man couples with a dangerous woman, that is the result. Women for powerful men are tested for sense of endurance and resilience. It is true that no-one can see into the heart of a human being and that the human eye can be fooled into thinking the greatest ugliness is the greatest beauty. After all, we live in an age in which beauty can be bought and paid for. Speaking of well -modulated voices, an individual’s voice is pitched as air passes through the epiglottis. The epiglottis of the person differs from one to another with distinct markings of identification. The tone and clarity of the male voice carry the life experiences of the individual, the capacity for pain, the capacity for love, the apexes of life carried through the voice and carried through sound waves to the ears of the listener. Perhaps it is not the voice we hear, rather how the sound traverses and is carried to the ears of the audience. I think to myself, that the depth of sound is indicative of a rich life experience, but not necessarily a pure life experience. It says I am man, listen to me. It says I understand you. it says I am here. Woman is committed to find her place within the pace, the tone and pitch of the voice of man. She is to find her orders there. The voice commands her to do so. It stows the anchor to her spirit. What a person says is almost of secondary importance. The voice carries the message.

I am of the belief that one should never put oneself into situations one is not able to handle – now. Some people propagate risk taking, to strike out at a new experience. I don’t recommend it. Successful risktakers are highly skilled and highly trained. When I was young, I found myself knotted in experiences I wasn’t able to handle. I didn’t recognize it at the time, but I have to say that extreme fear guided my decisions and my actions at that time. As a result, the most beautiful opportunities and people slipped out of my hands because of defiant careless decisions not to include them in my life. Grave mistakes were made and I lost friendships and love made in heaven just for me. As I examine myself, I think that I was never ready for rough and tumble like experiences, or let’s see what happens – kind of rhetoric. I needed to be talked through everything, to have ABC driving manuals to guide the way, so to speak, so fearful was I to take a step to reach into other people. So afraid to make a mistake and usually on moral and ethical grounds. I was the kind of person who had to see the plan. I had to know the ending.  A Scarlett O Hara kind of creature. Until one of the most famous phrases in film making almost became a mantra that time.  I often think about her and wonder about the reasons that she was not capable of being real, that she covered herself with expense and flounce. She didn’t understand that she had never presented her real self to anyone. I have to say that I almost suffered the same outcome. I have a different take now. Luxuries, or shows of affluence almost make my stomach turn.

Almost thirty years later, I find myself facing the same issues again, an unresolved part of myself and my deep fear of getting it wrong and my deepest fear of not being quite good enough – a nearly-there sort of person. Fear is not a quality; it is more a biological reaction – an adrenal issue. ‘She is highly strung,’ They used to say about me. I used to live my life in a knot of wrangled anxiety. Any kind of push at all caused me to back off. While I used to think about and monitor my feelings of fear and anxiety, loved ones were hurt because they did not have access to partake of me – and I then I would drop them. Perhaps I am being too harsh on myself, but I needed a map to maintain relationships, to sustain relationality. However, my biggest concern then was, what would happen next? Sometimes if I had received an invitation, I would refuse and with insistence I would give in, with a half-hearted effort in participation of the event. Arrogance is a human terror.  I remember attending a theater with a loved one. He asked me if I felt ok and I was so concerned about whether or not I was behaving with poise that I missed the feeling he was engineering for me.  It is the simplest question in the world and it is meaningful query which expresses a loving concern. That is what he had for me. I will not travel on his wings; he has since met many beautiful flowers to take his eye. I met him twenty years later, as fresh and bright as he was when he was young. It dawned on me today. After having denied so much love, I cannot complain about harsh treatment now from anyone. I imagine that if I am patient and bear my punishment, I will get it over with, perhaps God will be merciful with me and I will not have face punishment there. Yes, following-up with regard to relations is problematic. I have developed the people skills to support other people in times of hardship to the point that they hardly realize what I am doing. Really, I have so many blessings and loving presences in my life – who take care of me from a distance without me even feeling it. It suffices and I am grateful -for now.

‘I’m gay,’ He said. My response went something like this; ‘Well, if you believe you are, then indeed you are self-professed.’

As far as I am concerned, there are two genders, man and woman. My conceptualization is that ‘gay’ is not a gender rather a description of an enactment of sexuality and not of sexual feeling. The trouble is that people cannot recognize the difference between attraction and desire. As I explained to someone, I may feel attracted to someone, but an attraction does not mean that I feel desire for that person. An attraction is a signal of recognition, it is not the yearning of desire. The feeling of desire is a yearning for the beloved. Desire is a feeling or a drive for pleasure and sexual desire is the fulfilment of sexual need. Sexual desire is at basal level cathartic and sexual enactment is a matter of getting it out – without any particular concern for the other. Who am I to make a value statement? Sexual desire becomes a deep-seated need for the other when there is love. Desire awakens gently as a result of heart felt encounters with someone you want to know. Desire leads the lover into the beloved and it hurts very much. The feeling of attraction is a broader category of feeling. Attraction sometimes causes me to gravitate towards people. I can look at a picture of Marilyn Munroe. I am certain that many people find her attractive, including myself, but I do not desire her. Attraction causes me to admire someone, but admiration is not synonymous with desire. Finding someone attractive is not ensuant to desire for that person. Desire is a build up of feeling, controlled by the head and emanated by the heart. As I have said there are two genders. I have the idea that masculinity and femininity exist on a continuum. People are imbued to a greater or lesser degree with male and female characteristics according to the ways in which life experiences and influences are internalized to bear on the behaviour and characteristics of a person. I have yet to hear anyone talking in absolute terms about the constituents of femininity and masculinity. The form of a Barbie doll can be deceptively feminine. Similarly, the butch characteristics of woman does not make her any less feminine. Butch is a variety of femininity as Kamp is a variety of masculinity.  Some of the most Kamp men are incisively perceptive and strong. Indeed, it is said that some butch women are sensitive. We can consider that man and woman are paired in degrees of femininity and masculinity. I am beginning to think that homosexuality is a matter of neurobiological wiring. I say this with sensitivity because men and women who say they are gay may not like to read this at all. Indeed, I do not pretend to have all the answers, but these are my thoughts on the matter.

Smoke in the air…

I am given to studying the patterns of smoke after a bomb has exploded. Perhaps others engaged in forensic activity prefer to examine the aftermath and the crater like damage which leaves the ground raw and unlevelled. The attack on Lebanon was quite a shock. The smoke was a blue and red colour. When I looked carefully, I found that the billowing of the smoke and its tendency to mushroom told me its story. Similarly, with the explosion in Iraq. I looked into the smoke. There are faces to be seen in the smoke – a smoke screen as if angels come to take stock of the damage. I could have sworn that I saw a hulk-like creature, like a minotaur man bending over the body of a beloved. I imagine that the explosion was caused to thwart someone from doing something, a show of power or a threatening deterrent to force someone to refrain from a particular kind of behaviour. I looked again. I saw this hulk-like creature etched in smoke monitoring the life stages of this individual who was present at the wrong time in the wrong place. After a bomb explodes the smoke settles into a picture. I imagine the Navaho and their ability for smoke signaling. Pictures in smoke puffed visual communication from mountain to mountain without a single gesture. Smoke was monitored. White smoke might indicate a single incidence of anger. Black smoke in its blackness is the beginning of a spouting of violent angry rage.  The Navaho have an incredible ability to read the elements and to read people. I rather replayed the video of the Iraqi incident a couple of times and then I mused. About 314 people have been interred as a result. Probably ordinary people with no affiliation to any intelligence group, inferior, superior or otherwise. ISIS, they said. When something like this happens the public demand a reaction from the managing authority. The easiest thing in the world to do is to blame the most vulnerable, the poor and lowly who have no recourse to self-defense. Often, in these situations, there are pay-offs and bribes in the actions of interring individuals. The police in some of these countries are not apart from the general populous. The relationship is very close. If I am a police man or woman and I feel any kind of resentment against a group or an individual, I will arrest from them just to keep my loved ones safe. And so, people are thrown in jail – set up without much of a to-do. When such an explosion occurs, I look to the intelligence groups. But the intelligence groups are legitimate. It is the splinter mercenary groups who use world arenas as opportunities for personal back at you type vendettas. To be honest, it is almost entirely impossible to sustain subjectivity when involved in world of intelligence. To be a successful agent of intelligence, a great deal of collaboration is expected – the forging of trusting close bonds and ability to know without holding back. But there is a lot of lying and cheating involved which is not taken seriously enough. Indeed, the best of men and women have lost their lives as a result of such treachery. Many of whom are innocent and are concerned only with earning their bread and butter.  Emotive work really – the reason for all the training required to square oneself off from the self – so that the intelligent individual will not feel too much of himself – a rather complex variation of detachment. It can be rather difficult to latch on – you must be quick off the mark, they say.

And that is what I am not.

Realizations – dichotomous

It is true that I was not born Muslim and that faith came upon me. My friends at the time of my conversion exhibited the epitome of exemplary behaviour and I wanted to be part of them. They are gone now. Their souls have since left the earth. Then, if I am a Muslim, which I am, then it is presumed that my religion is Islam, the assumed expression and realization of my faith. It is a natural assumption that Muslims practice Islam – to relative degrees of realization that is. Islam is a kind of religion which takes over the being and resides in the soul, present in the intonation of the voice, the movement, and even in the colour of the skin. I have to admit that when I pray and read koran that I am completely overcome by a wont for God almighty. Perhaps it is the measure of conduit channeled through prayer which defines me as a Muslim. Some might say that a revert to Islam is not a real Muslim and that Islam is a matter of lineage, an entitlement of blood or a birthright. As I consider black African American reverts, I find that in reality, a reversion to Islam means a reversion to the substance of origin – black African Americans were forced into slavery and suppressed into a faith that was not theirs, at that time. Then, a reversion to Islam is a return to the indigenous nature or fitrah. For them, Islam is a birthright, a reversion to faith simply implying a return to the spiritual place of origin. I heard a story about a woman who discovered her ancestry, that in fact she is a descendent of Fatima, the daughter of the Prophet. This white Caucasian woman ‘reverted’ to Islam. Does the lapse of faith in the interim period of generations detract from her Islam or cause her to be less of a Muslim than others who are born Muslim? People ask her if she is Muslim all the time. She wears full Islamic dress. Mind you, not many people trust the appearance of a white woman in national dress. They say things like,” She married a local,” or, “She wants to marry a local.” But born Muslims have an explanation for everything. These kinds of observations kernelled in such resentful statements are meant to belittle the efforts of some female reverts who have clearly chosen their way. However, some women are more fervent than others, but we are told that everything is based on intentionality. I shall have what I intend, I am told. I shall be rewarded according to my intention. Therefore, if I have not been identified as a Muslim woman even though I may don the appearance of one, then with deference to intentionality, whether or not I am considered a Muslim by others, I am a Muslim because that is what I intend to be.

The most fervent reverts expound great efforts in worship and are somehow sometimes mocked by born Muslims. Some Muslim reverts are envied for their fervor as some born Muslim begrudge the right of the revert to have membership of the religion. After all, Islam is theirs, isn’t it? It is their Prophet isn’t it?  A revert is just a blow-in and sometimes is not accepted by the community of choice. The privilege of having been borne Muslim is considered to be a specter of entitlement. They say – because I have been born a Muslim, then I am one, whether I choose to worship or not – this is what they say. The perception and frustration faced by some Muslim reverts is the frustration in dealing with the resentment of a community that does not want to consider their membership.  Speaking for myself, being part of them at all sometimes causes me to feel despondency, or perhaps this is purely a female phenomenon. There is always someone present to trick you out of something in one way or other and in Islam it is not supposed to be that way. Sometimes I think that I am deluded by a vision of perfection. It hasn’t quite sunk in that Muslim or otherwise, people are people and are therefore dysfunctional. Perhaps men do not experience the same degree of tribulation in terms of spiritual travesty. In my personal experience, trying to fit into a female community who are less than tolerant of outsiders damages the spirit and is worse than any grievous bodily harm one might experience. After all, I am told, if I do not succeed, that I must try, try again. What rot, my lady might say! It suffices to say that I am truly sick and tired of struggling to keep my head and they say that they are Muslim.

Musing on…

Water runs down the sinkhole, a flow of brilliant clarity, incessantly for a second. I think of sharia law. I am a Muslim and how am I identified as such? Is it the clothes I wear? Am I a Muslim simply because I follow certain precepts of Islam? Or am I defined by a belief system because I live within the bounds of a certain framework of existence. Perhaps – might be the retort to all of these questions. It is true that I was not born Muslim and that faith came upon me. My friends at the time of my conversion exhibited the epitome of exemplary behaviour and I wanted to be part of them. They are gone now. Their souls have since left the earth. Then, if I am a Muslim, which I am, then it is presumed that my religion is Islam, the assumed expression and realization of my faith. It is a natural assumption that Muslims practice Islam to relative degrees of realization, isn’t it? Islam is a kind of religion which takes over the being and resides in the soul, present in the voice and intonation and even in the colour of the skin. I have to admit that when I pray and read koran that I am completely overcome by a wont for God almighty. Perhaps the measure of conduit channeled through prayer defines me as a Muslim. Some might say that a revert to Islam is not a real Muslim and that Islam is a matter of lineage, a matter of blood. However, as I consider black African American reverts, I find that in reality, a reversion to Islam means a reversion to the substance of origin – black African Americans were forced into slavery and suppressed into a faith that was not theirs, at that time. Then, the reversion to Islam is a return to the indigenous nature or fitrah for them. For these Muslims, a coming to faith or belief is a reversion, somehow implying a return to the spiritual place of origin. I heard a story about a woman who discovered her ancestry, that in fact she is a descendent of Fatima, the daughter of the Prophet. This white Caucasian woman ‘reverted’ to Islam. Does the lapse of faith in the interim period of generations detract from her Islam or cause her to be less of a Muslim than others? People ask her if she is Muslim all the time. She wears full Islamic dress. Mind you, not many people trust the appearance of a white woman in national dress. They say things like,” She married a local,” or, “She wants to marry a local.” Born Muslims have an explanation for everything. These kinds of observations kernelled in resentful statements are meant to belittle the efforts of some female reverts who have clearly chosen their way. However, some women are more fervent than others, but we are told that everything is based on intentionality. I shall have what I intend, I am told. I shall be rewarded according to my intention. Therefore, if I have not been identified as a Muslim woman even though I may don the appearance of one, then with deference to intentionality, whether or not I am considered a Muslim by others, I am a Muslim because that is what I intend to be.

The most fervent reverts expound great efforts in worship and are somehow sometimes mocked by born Muslims. Some Muslim reverts are envied for their fervor as some born Muslim begrudge the right of the revert to have membership of the religion. After all, Islam is theirs, isn’t it? It is their Prophet isn’t it?  A revert is just a blow-in and sometimes is not accepted by the community of choice. The privilege of having been borne Muslim is considered to be a specter of entitlement. They say – because I have been born a Muslim, then I am one, whether I choose to worship or not – this is what they say. The perception and frustration faced by some Muslim reverts is the frustration in dealing with the resentment of a community that does not want to consider their membership.  Being part of them at all sometimes causes me to feel despondency, or perhaps this is purely a female phenomenon. Perhaps men do not experience the same degree of tribulation in terms of spiritual travesty. In my personal experience, trying to fit into a female community who are less than tolerant of outsiders damages the spirit and is worse than any grievous bodily harm one might experience. After all, I am told, if I do not succeed, that I must try, try again. What rot, my lady might say! It suffices to say that I am truly sick and tired and they say that they are Muslim. There is a common misconception that being borne a Muslim somehow entitles a person to say and do as they want, a kind of exaggerated freedom, the freedom to be rude and spiteful. It appears that there is a resentment of the outsider. But as in a horse race, the outsider is sometimes in a better position to win.

There are those who intend to deliberately sabotage the trajectory of a Muslim revert to apostate level in a self-affirmatory I told you so – he or she was never a real Muslim anyway. I imagine myself in a boat with the Prophet Moses(pbuh). I have heard of periodic deliberate actions to stifle the fervor of Muslims until the Muslim falls out of favor. What kind of devilish behaviour is that? It is useless to remind these kinds of people, ugly as their natures appear to be, that Salman Al Farsi was a non-Arab, that he shopped around for religion before he arrived to the circle of the Prophet of Islam. In fact, there is in the conscious minds of some, a silent stipulation that in order to be a real Muslim, one must be of Arab descent.  Indeed, perhaps I am of Arab descent, but I do not physically resemble the Arab in any way. Some of my country women have green eyes and black hair with sallow skin, a dead give-away of Arab descent and perhaps of Islamic origin. However, they worship as Christians, therefore we can assume that they are Christian, can’t we, that is – if I develop the ability to look into the heart of a Christian to see what I might find there. I do realize and understand that God has marked us all well. We are labelled.  I am marked too, but I do not have the ability to interpret what these marks mean. In the days after the Prophet Mohamed (PBUH), there were believers in society who had light illuminating their foreheads and they were worried about whether or not they were real Muslims. Omar ibn Al Khattib worried about hell all the time and considered that he had one foot there. There are inhabitants of hell who are Muslim. But the recent realization that the descendants of the Prophet are favored, albeit spread as their generations spilled into other faiths has dawned on me. I perceive that it is not the practiced faith which defines them, rather their marks which identify the favor God has bestowed upon them, including the matter of the lineage of Prophethood and the matter of tribal origin. It appears that the most distinguished marks a person has is the mark of blood ties, the tribal markings which may or may not be overt. This is my discovery. Perhaps I should look to latch onto these groups of people. I will think twice before I call anyone a kafir, because only God knows. After all, the map of origin is drawn on the inside of the thigh. If I was able to interpret my map, I think I might be proud.

Musing on…