The below 2020 memoir submission won first place in the Lebanese American University's 2021 Annual Creative Writing Competition.
I used to think the four horsemen of the apocalypse wrote history to spare us the boredom that was — by default — to be served on an existential platter to us, the mundane.
Giza, Chichén Itzá, Mount Olympus, and maybe Babylonia, too, were not manmade wonders, but stories invented, designed to cater to the curiosity of mankind, by persons unknown.
Wars and conflicts won and lost were forever on screens, away from our zones of safety, inviting us to gaze, in silence, to gasp in horror and shock — “how could humans commit such calamities against other humans?” — and continue to scroll.
Meme, selfie, ad, mass starvation in Yemen, meme, influencer, ad, friend breaking COVID rules, ISIS airstrikes, meme, here are 4 ways to lose weight!, and we go to sleep.
Everything is safe, it always has been.
I knew there was an ongoing war in 2006, but things were relatively calm for a kid living in Metn.
My memories of 2006 include watermelon juice dripping from my chin, the cold tiles of the kitchen and my body resting on them, coloring books, scented crayons scattered everywhere, out-of-tune hum-alongs to the Disney cartoon songs playing from a distance. Cold baths and bedtime stories were my absolute favorites.
A power plant not too far from us was once hit by an airstrike, but that was mostly it. Life was all about making our home — my room — as fun as my imagination could do. Everything else was safe and sound, and I was the happiest kid alive.
Until a very real, brutal blast ripped me to shreds, and before I could dust the fresh trauma off of myself: an unjust, brutal war raged against another part of this world I call home, and it kicked me to the curb.
I was no longer the happiest kid alive, not anymore. Explosions and wars are real because I have officially seen them with the pair of eyes I call my own.
It hits me, with tears welled up and fists squeezed into my palms.
I can’t double-tap real explosions and wars.
-
I cannot double-tap
On the friend who lost a leg
Or the friend who lost a home
To a foreign enemy or
A smoke-filled megadome
Because they’re gone before I could.
-
I cannot double-tap
On the son who died
To negligence or to crime
During war or peacetime
But I can, instead, try and cry.
Because what else can we do?
-
I cannot double-tap
On the displaced
From bullets and shards
Of glass and injustice
By men who ask us
To trust them.
Because who else is there to listen to us, the voiceless?
-
I cannot double-tap
On the thousands of tears
Wrapped in millions of fears
Holding onto dear life
Whispering back at me
Into my ear.
Because there’s nobody else left but us, the breathing.
-
Instead
I beg the world
To double-tap
For me.
-
A friend texts, asking if we know what caused it, I tell her we probably never will.
A friend texts, asking if we’ll ever see the end of it, I tell him we probably never will.
Meme, selfie, ad, a war raging against Armenia, meme, influencer, ad, friend breaking COVID rules to sweep the streets of blemished Beirut, meme, here are 4 ways to raise awareness!, and they go to sleep.
People around the world double-tap for me now, and that’s if they do.
They double-tap, so the algorithm understands that my friend who needs urgent blood for his 20-hour-long shattered chest surgery is more important than the next rising reality star.
They double-tap, so the algorithm prioritizes that call for Congress, you know, the one with the blue backdrop, to stop Azerbaijan from committing war crimes against my people.
My people.
They double-tap for me now. For us. For my people. And they scroll because everything is safe, it always has been.
“So where can we donate?”
What else can they possibly do?
So you scream into the void, into oblivion.
You hug your pillow and think of how good that batata harra used to be at Emm Nazih.
You think of the to-be-desecrated heritage sites you never got to see, in the hands of neo-nazis, to be reduced to neo-ruins.
You think of the elder couple who were rapidly leaving a half-collapsed building with overfilled suitcases, and wonder if they have a safe roof’s sleep tonight.
You think of the defenseless old man whose throat was split open, on live cam, for the whole world to see, for the whole world to watch, for the whole world to scroll.
You think about the bloodied man on the motorcycle and wonder whether he was alive.
You realize it’s become too tense and you’re trying to sleep, so you go back to thinking of that batata harra at Emm Nazih, the one we might never get to taste again.
Did the people of Pompeii run from Vesuvius the way we ran from the Beirut port?
Were wars always as bloody as they are today, sans cellphones to record?
The four horsemen of the apocalypse did not invent wars and blasts and poisonous hatred.
We, the mundane, did.
We always have.
-
The mundane
Ensured
Strikes and war
Or the smoke and ash
That Beirut wore.
-
The mundane
Ensured
Life so miserable
For us, right here,
The invisible.
-
The mundane
Ensured
This side of the world
Is the region that’s curled
Into the infamous crone
Called The Conflict Zone™️
-
And the mundane’s thirsty for more.
-
The mundane
Fought
The war
-
Shot
The toil
-
Taught us hatred
Of our soil
-
Caught
The good side
From its throat
Gripping tight
As we choke
Pleading for air
From the mundane bloke
Forever.
-
The mundane
Forced tiny me
To grow inside
A pile of debris.
-
To leave home
And look to flee.
-
To live a life
Of no guarantee.
So here we are, with no peace to foresee, begging the world for double-taps, because watermelon juice and scented crayons are a tale of bygones, a tale long gone.