From the Virus's point of view

I mean it’s not like I enjoy making people sick. It’s just who I am. It’s just what I do. It’s not my fault [emoji of boy walking away with hands in pocket]. If you believe in “God” then the “God made me that way” explanation would suffice. If you don’t believe in “God”, well then I don’t know what to tell you. Pigeons shit on your head sometimes. The Canadian Geese will beat the shit out of you, if you even stare at them the wrong way. Bears will eat you if they find you in the woods. And I, well I cause you to feel like shit for a few days, mostly when the weather turns cold. 

Why now? You ask. Why am I opening up about it now? Well, because nobody ever considers my feelings. Nobody ever bloody sees it from my FUCKING perspective. First humans create this man made computer virus in 1982, and now whenever someone says the word “virus” there’s a panicky “Oh My God, did you backup all your files” gasp! 

Then, ever since Google came into existence, the only time people even wonder what I am, or what I do, is when they catch a cold. They go on the internet with sniffly red noses, and watery eyes, to try and understand why endless slime of yellow/green mucus won’t stop running down their noses, and why revolting diarrhea won’t stop dribbling down their bums. DISGUSTING, I tell you.

Then, there are those unflattering pics of me on Google, which I did not consent to publish by the way, but in this era of “no such thing as privacy” we live in, there’s nothing I can do about it (Humph). I’m just a squiggly round green blob, and my picture is always next to the flu virus, all blue and more sophisticated looking than I am. Why? Why am I always compared to the flue? Just because he’s the more scary one, the more powerful one, the one who contrives “a fever”. The flu’s pics are all captioned “The Flu virus” while mine are captioned “The common cold”; “common”, that’s all I am to them “common”, that’s how everybody sees me.

Nobody wants to know about my hardships, about what I endure; swapped between dirty, unwashed hands, in filthy toilets, and shot from nasty noses, onto soiled door knobs, and dollar notes, and greasy sticky restaurant menus, and handles of gym equipment. Then there are the ghastly bodies I end up inside. Oh My God [shocked open-mouthed emoji]. Whenever I invade those human bodies, suddenly those slobs stop bathing, they never get out of bed, they smell, they whine, and complain, like stupid little babies, and the gas! (Urgh/Shudder), I mean I get they need to blow their noses, but blowing out their asses! Eww! Gross! And I’m not even to responsible for the gas, they just throw that in, for variety. Then they look me up on Google, and there I am, next to that bloody handsome blue flu, with all those tiny complex tubes coming out of his edges, and all those scientific looking nerves running through him, while I’m just a blob, a common snotty green blob.

Then they start texting their friends, and their family, or whatever, “it’s only a common cold” they reassure them “I know cause I got my flu shot a month ago, so it can’t be the flu [crying to death emoji] [relieved emoji] [laughing to death emoji]. Well, enough is enough. I am not just the “common cold”. I am not just a snotty green blob. And you didn’t catch me fart face, you couldn’t catch a beach ball if it hit you on the damn face, you poorly immuned twat! I am ‘Acute Viral Nasopharyngitis Rhinitis, and I have feelings too.

*The author recently recovered from the common cold.

To Survive

Sometimes I almost grasp it, consumed in my art; the rare moments when I’m writing and enjoying it, or when I’m completely absorbed in a painting, and I lose track of time. I know who I am, what I want, my worth as an individual, I can see where I’m going, there’s a path, the journey is long but I am up for it.  And then life. Life with its mundane laundry doing, grocery shopping, floor vacuuming nonsense, swallows me up, and I’m not a writer, an artist, or a creative. Who am I? What is any of this for? What a waste of time and energy! How silly of me to even believe in myself. I’m just another person with soiled garments, an empty fridge, and a dirty carpet. I’m ordinary, I’m boring, I’m mediocre, I’m just another tired preoccupied mind, squiggly limbs, and stretched out, exhausted muscles. I disappear, I lose my voice, my body, the very features I foolishly thought set me apart, and become one of the masses, I stand in endless cashier queues, I forget, I grumble at having to scrape snow off my windshield. I need to eat and sleep somewhere clean, this is what it comes down to. I squint, trying to remember that good line I thought of while I was driving but couldn’t note down. It’s gone.

‘Pay rent’ the neon pink sticky note says with an exclamation mark for emphasize. This is what comes down to, to survive, is to be basic, is to fear, is to forget the imaginative line, but never forget to pay rent.

Happy Birthday

It was a day like today, fourteen years ago I gave birth to you. The white that blanketed the roads and commons, made me squint my eyes, the bitter iciness of the wind stung my face, and took my breath away. The snow came down hard, car tires made that funny crunching sound as they went. People skidded, and fell as the snow hardened into a severe sheet of ice. It was the coldest winter they’ve had in sixty years, the British had said, shaking their heads. 

We lived on 37 Coniston Road, Coventry, while I did my Masters. Before moving to 67 Dugdale Road where I did my PhD. “They were horrendous, absolutely horrendous” The old Irish woman who lived next door to us on Coniston Road, liked to say of how brutal the British were to the Irish during the war. Every time we met out on the porch, I said good morning, or hello, and she’d ask me to repeat what I said “I’m a little deaf, it happens to everyone you know” she’d yell with a little mocking laugh. It’s a shame I forgot what her name was.

My due date was December 25^th. My midwife was happy that I was to have a Christmas baby. And the nurse who squeezed the cold gel on my enormous stomach, and ran the transducer on my belly during the ultrasound, was happy I was going to have a Christmas baby. Due date. Everyone wanted to know when my due date was. For nine months my whole life revolved around my due date. Little did I know that you’d change my whole life, the end of those nine months was just the beginning, not the end.

But you were an early baby, eager and in a hurry to arrive, and you came on the 19^th. I welcomed your early arrival, my stomach had grown so big, I couldn’t sleep, I couldn’t eat, my breathing was labored, I was so tired. When I read that walking can help induce the delivery, I went up and down the stairs, it was too cold to walk outside, I could slip on the ice. Up and down the stairs I went in that little house, until my water broke and the pains came.

When you were little you used to love getting your picture taken, or at least you didn’t mind it. Now you scowl and groan each time I tell you I want to take your picture. I hope you change your mind again, and go back to loving it once more.

You’re fourteen. Happy Birthday my love. It’s been the most beautiful adventure. Thank you for all the joy you’ve brought into my life. Thank you for teaching me what enormous love and compassion I am capable of.

 

In My Head

I fumble for the light switch.


Then I remember that when it is dark in here, it is dark.


The four-billion-year-old sun does not shine through; no lamp fixtures, no burning candle, no moon shining shyly between pulled curtains, no windows.


But when this brooding cat opens its glowing eyes, like two exploding planets, the swirls of fiery yellows, olive, and lime bursts into light, and I have to find my balance.


In these thick perplexing woods, I never know when my mind will shut like a clam. But I learned to sense the storm, the way humans - over thousands of years learned to listen for the bending blade of grass, the dancing crab, the fidgeting of a snake inside its burrow. 


The worst thing about being in my head is also the best thing. The best thing is also the worst. There is no way out.

Do we really know anyone at all?

I was reading a novel, Mostly Dead Things, by Kristen Arnett. In the final chapter of the book, the protagonist Jessa is having a heart-to-heart with her mother, and the mother tells Jessa that she feel she doesn’t really know her anymore, and Jessa replies “nobody really knows anybody”.

It’s not a new sentiment, writers have repeated it dozens of times, it’s almost a cliché. But it struck me how simple and true it is, not to mention how tragic.

I still remember a relative (an older lady) telling me how shocked she was when her husband of thirty-five years told her that he preferred firm greenish tomatoes, not yet ripe. I’ve been married to him for Thirty-five years, and I’ve served him tomatoes in all kinds of daily meals, and never once did I know that he preferred them unripe, she said smiling in astonishment.

Sure, people change their minds about how they like their tomatoes; our taste in food is always changing. But it remains a mystery how we don’t really know one another. I claim that I know my daughter who is turning fourteen-years-old next December, but I’m baffled by some of the things she says, and does almost every other day. I used to think I at least knew her moods, what she likes to read, how she likes to dress, her favorite color, and what she likes to eat. But there were many incidents when I guessed wrong.

People change, people grow, and the things we refuse to share with each other are – unfortunately – a lot more than the things we do share. Why is that? Why do we only scratch the surface of those we love and cherish? I don’t know the answer to this. We are mysteries, to others and in many ways to ourselves.

عامليني كطفل

قبل بضعة أيام كتبت طبيبة عربية في "تويتر" أنه من الخطأ قيام الأم بتجاهل طفلها الذي يبكي كثيراً، فالطفل لا يبكي إلاّ لسبب، إما مبلول، أو جائع، أو يشعر بالبرد، أو يريد شد انتباه الأم وحضنها وحنانها. وأنه من الخطأ الأخذ بنصيحة "دعيه يبكي حتى يسكت

علّق مجموعة من الذكور أن هناك طفل آخر في البيت يريد اهتمام الأم وحضنها وحنانها، ومن الخطر تجاهل هذا الطفل الكبير! قاصدين بذلك الزوج.

هؤلاء الذكور تجاهلوا تماماً أنهم أيضاً كآباء مسؤولين عن العناية بهذا الطفل، بحمله وضمّه ومعاملته بحنان، دورهم كأزواج لا ينتهي بمجرد مضاجعة الزوجة والتسبب بالحمل، ثم رمي كافة مسؤولية الاهتمام والعناية بالطفل عليها عندما يولد.

الذكر العربي هو الذكر الوحيد الذي يتفاخر أنه طفل كبير. يردد من دون خجل أنه طفل، وأنه يريد حنان الزوجة، وفي ذات الوقت يريدها أن تحترمه، وتهابه، وتخشى من عنفه وغضبه وصراخه وتنفذ كل طلباته. من دون أن يعي حجم التناقض! كيف تريد منها ان تقول لك "حاضر" و "أمرك" و "اللي تشوفه" وفي نفس الوقت تعاملك كطفل!؟

الذكر العربي أناني ولا يفكر إلا باحتياجاته، فمرحلة الاهتمام بطفل رضيع هي مرحلة متعبة جداً في حياة المرأة. خروجها من مرحل الحمل المتعبة جسدياً، استيقاظها عدّة مرات في الليل عندما يبكي الطفل مرهق نفسياً وعقلياً بسبب قلّة ساعات النوم، ومحاولة إعادة حياتها لمسارها الطبيعي من بعد الولادة، بالعودة لأعباء المنزل وبقية أطفالها، أو العودة للعمل خارج المنزل، كل هذه الأمور تعتبر تحديات كبيرة للمرأة. لكن الذكر العربي الأناني لا يفكر إلا في نفسه، "اهتمي بي كطفل رضيع، واغدقي عليّ بالحب والحنان، وفي ذات الوقت تعاملي معي باحترام، واشعريني بهيبتي ورجولتي، وقومي بتربية أطفالي، واهتمي بمنزلي، وأجيبي كل طلباتي، وساهمي معي بتغطية النفقات!"

عقل الذكر العربي المريض

شجعتُ ابنتي على أخذ مادة اللغة العربية الموجودة في مدرستها كمادة اختيارية، كي تستمر في ممارسة لغتها وأن لا تنساها.

جاءت من المدرسة أمس تسألني "ماما! لماذا البوح باسم أمهاتنا عيب؟"

شَرَحت لي جوري أن المعلّمة طلبت من كل تلميذ أن يكتب نص قصير يذكر فيه اسم كل عضو من أعضاء أسرته ونبذة عنه، ماذا يحب؟ ماهي هواياته؟ وهكذا؟

وعندما طلبت المعلمة من طالب عربي (فلسطيني الأصل) قراءة ما كتب، رفض البوح باسم أمه؟ استغربت المعلّمة وسألته لماذا، فقال أن في ثقافته العربية من العيب البوح باسم الأم.

سألتُ جوري ما إذا المعلّمة (عربية الأصل) حاولت إيصال الفكرة للطالب أنه اسم أمه ليس عار، وعليه أن لا يتبنى مثل هذا الفكر، لكن جوري قالت أن المعلّمة أبدت استغرابها فقط، وانتقلت لتلميذ آخر من دون تعليق.

حزنتُ لأنني اضطررت للشرح لجوري أن الذكر العربي يعتبر اسم أمه عار، أنه يعتبر كل أنثى في أسرته عار، وعيب، وعورة ، وحُرمة، وأنه من شدّة عُقدهُ الجنسية يظن أن البوح باسم أمه سيجعل المستمع يتخيّل أمه جنسياً!

وحزنتُ أيضاً لأن هذا الطفل (عمره 14 سنة) وُلِد في الولايات المتحدة، أي أنه أمريكي، لكن والده الذي أتى إلى هنا هرباً من الاضطهاد والقمع في بلده الأصلي لازال يُمارس القمع والاضطهاد على المرأة، ويُصِر أن يورّث ابنه كل أمراضه وعقده الجنسية، وأن يورثّه آيديولوجية احتقار المرأة.