 April, 2007
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SOMEWHERE IN ENGLAND
Great balls of fire!
Richard J Murphy
Dolly got away because
she was female. |
Great News! The curse of the Mozzies is to be lifted! In many newspapers today is the story that in America genetically bred mosquitoes will soon be released into the wild. The important bit is that they don’t carry malaria, so after a few mosquito generations the dreaded disease will be like me, history.
Ok, you say, wonderful, but what’s the news? Well, you should know that these modified mozzies’ genes have mutated so they have red eyes. Don’t ask me why, I never could understand the taste or logic of Americans. I mean, if you wake up in the middle of the night, and you’re being devoured by a mosquito, are you going to look into its eyes, and then say, “it’s ok, you,ve got red eyes, carry on,”? I don’t think so.
Well, British ingenuity has triumphed again, and we’ve succeeded where our American cousins failed. The Brits have genetically engineered mosquitoes with, instead of red eyes, fluorescent green testicles, enabling them to be easily identified. Yes it’s true, it was in the newspapers this morning. Let’s face it, what’s the first thing a woman looks for if awoken in the middle of the night? That’s right, and if they’re fluorescent green, she’s going to be reassured that it’s the same old story, won’t swat them, and will go back to sleep.
I decided to test this strategy, and observe the reaction of the human female; would she swat a mozzie with fluorescent green brains? Brains you ask? Yes, Both my ex-wives have made the observation that my brains are carried in the little bag between my legs, they said that accounts for the size (small) and my preoccupation with some fundamental aspects of human behaviour. They made this observation and then they left. I’m sure that was just a coincidence.
So I painted the appropriate parts of my body the most fluorescent green I could find, it took many barrels of paint, there was so much to cover, and went to bed with my lady. Of course I hadn’t told her; it was going to be a surprise, and hey once the scientific experiment was over, who knows what might happen?
We went to sleep. At about two o’clock in the morning, I politely tapped her on the shoulder, three times, and waited anxiously. It’s what we do, tapping on shoulders, three times. If you think that’s odd, I can only say it works for us…..
Anyway, she awoke, grumbling and mumbling, and at that point I stood up and exposed myself, including the fluorescent bits of my body. Her reaction wasn’t exactly what I expected, and certainly not what I had wanted. After a few seconds of gaping she started to laugh, then she shrieked, and then she swatted my tender bits with a nearby hairbrush.
Do I need to tell the end of this story? It hurt! It hurt big time. My shrieks of agony were only matched by my lady’s laughter.
There was worse to come. I sleep with the curtains open. After two minutes of agonised wails and raucous laughter, I happened to look at the windows. Hey, we had an audience, comprised of most of the neighbours in the street, and a car with blue lights flashing! I was famous, but not in the manner I’d always yearned for…
The police were, as British bobbies are, courteous and understanding. Have you ever explained, naked, to a police officer how and why your vital parts are painted a fluorescent green? Don’t go there. It isn’t nice, and it is most embarrassing.
I wasn’t prosecuted, we were admonished for a disturbance of the peace, and of course we are the joke of the neighbourhood.
And I have bruises where most men don’t.
And I don’t care about genetically engineered mosquitoes.
LOVER OF LEAVING
Usted Esta Aqui
Gypsy Meye
The Sagrada Familia in Spain |
It’s true. It’s been ages. I’ve not written any new stories in months, unless you count these gypsy meye missives. I’ve not even taken many photos. I have some excuses, none of which are really responsible, because we all know the real reason (a weak writing spine, or conversely, far too turgid (tumescent, engorged, bulging) a social spine. In any case, I couldn’t dream a better travelling life than this, the third leg of my wondrous world trip. First Bangkok. Then Bangladesh. Now Barcelona.
In the 3 months I’ve had a flat here, I’ve had it to my naked nimble self all of a week. While it’s true that I invited all my friends to come, I had no clue they’d all take it up. Every last one. Yes, even you, because I know you’re online checking for tickets right now.
I was last in southern Europe more than a decade ago, on a college backpacking trip. And I remember now why I loved this city in particular so, and so immediately. It’s the most beautiful urban space in the world (save Istanbul), the one where I’d want to live longest (save San Francisco). Each corner I turn is a revelation. It’s like driving down Highway 1, along the western coast of America. Except the winding road is a stone cobbled alleyway, the drop away cliffs are exquisite old buildings, and the churning sea is balcony after balcony after balcony, weeping flowers down on me. I walk the streets for hours and hours and hours and I cannot stop looking.
Apparently spring is the time to come to the Mediterranean coast of Spain. It’s like late summer months in Berkeley - cool air, warm sun.
When I got out of customs at the airport, the first conversation I had was with a hot Spanish woman (so little time) who luckily used only words I understood (de donde vienes: where are you from). I was about to say Bangladesh, and then America, and then I realised why she was asking, and so I said, Dublin. My plane came from Dublin. Ha!
My apartment search might have been among the fastest in history. The day after I landed, I went and saw an apartment I had looked up earlier online (craigslist rocks). It’s two blocks from the stupendous Sagrada Familia, has two bedrooms, two balconies, a sunny living room, open kitchen, fully furnished, central, near the Metro, free wireless, and done and done and done. True, the bathroom is the size of a closet, and it’s a little more expensive than I wanted, but the timing and location and perfectness of the flat made up for anything else.
In these balmy breezy flower drippy months, I have jaunted through parks, beaches, mountains, cemeteries, shops, restaurants, cafes, and my balcony. If I then schedule in my 9 nightly hours of sleep, and a sudden influx of editing work (after months of loafing), then we can all see in which corner of oblivion my writing schedule sits. Let’s just call it research mode. Or something.
The Sonar Festival has been one of the highlights of my experience here. It’s an annual music and art festival, housed in the impressive Contemporary Art Museum of Barcelona. How crazy and brave of the city to lend a museum to the cause of international revelers! Seven ambitious partier friends of mine flew in from San Francisco and New York, rented a fat flat on Gran Via, and threw down for 3 days.
The festival music was mostly strange and confusing progressive electronica, with some bursts of excellence. The art was sometimes provoking, often incomprehensible and techobabbly, and not as pervasively funky as I wished. The organisation was terrible - 2 hour ticket lines, 1 hour entrance lines, popular DJ acts blocked up because too many people were trying to get in, and the Sonar Noche evening events miles and miles away. You would think after 15 years, they would figure that out. Oh, and the scene was hohum. Not the wild dancy crowds of Coachella, or the shiny arty druggie meld at Burning Man.
But did my friends and I care? No. We didn’t even make it to day 3 of the festival, despite our stylish festival armbands. No, instead we woke up at 4pm (ok, so, we didn’t wake up before 4pm any of the days) and tripped our way through Gaudi’s garden city in the hills to the north.
I was sitting on Parc Guell’s curvilicious tiled ceramic bench, when Mr. Kesey’s intoxication of choice hit. I don’t think we stopped laughing for the next 10 hours, through the hall of columns, the yellow flower garden, the metro rides, the trashy tourist cafe on Passeig de Gracia, the fat flat, the explosive crowded intense dance club City Hall, and our breakfast and chillout spot, the next morning.
No one who is interested in beauty and motion should pass this experience up. At 7:30am, as I was taking the subway back home, I watched in awe as the floor of the subway transformed into a 3D tron-like grid, where the tiling and dirt marks became shooting points of light, pulsing around my feet in 90 degree angles. When I emerged outside, under the looming spires of the Sagrada Familia at dawn, it was as if the world had been painted, fresh, just for me.
Since I’ve been living large in BCN, i.e. spending all my money on rent and Rioja tinto and no-return plane tickets, I’ve had no money left over. My bank account has been at 0 for 2 weeks now. I can count the number of times I’ve been to a Barcelona dance club on one hand. The number of times I’ve eaten out in a proper restaurant on two. But the number of times I’ve chopped up a million cheapo veggies for a salad meal, I can’t even tell you. I think I’m part espinaca, part garbanzo, all farty queen at this point (and when you come to visit, that’s what you’re getting for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, kiddo).
I’m in love with this city. Even though I still can’t speak Spanish, let alone Catalan. It’s ok because after all my visitors, I am totally antisocial, and enjoy being utterly alone in the city. I go for long bike rides on my rusty bike. I run slowly around my neighbourhood of Eixample (pronounced ey-shamp-lay). I sit on my sunny balcony for all my meals. I lie in bed all afternoon and read. I am continually in awe of my semi-perfect life. I should add that I also work! I know no one believes it, but I edit, write, and transcribe, sometimes full time, like the last 3 weeks. After all, I have to fund my semi-perfect life somehow, right?
I had all these pipedream plans to finally return to America, land up in the big bad apple to find myself an agent and publisher. Or maybe buy a used car in Central America and drive south as far as it goes (it being the car or the continent). Or hitchhike to where I was born, in Nigeria, to see if the playground jungle gym is still bright red, or even there. But I think I want to stay here, in Barcelona, by the sea, instead.
Speaking of hitchhiking, I stole that idea from my cool architect uncle. When he was studying in Ankara, he hitchhiked from Turkey to Tripoli where my parents were living at the time, and where I was conceived. Admittedly, he had to buy a ferry ticket along the way (there is the Med after all), but most of it was on the fly, and he arrived on my parents’ doorstep with a beard and a bag, 2 weeks later.
When I hear stories like this, I understand why my parents accepted my wanderlust of a life so quickly. I understand why I did. It’s true that being abroad sometimes reminds me I’m Bangladeshi or American or Nigerian, in pleasant and unpleasant ways. But it’s also true that being in any of my home countries reminds me that I’m not from there. I’m from somewhere else. Though it’s always true that being home (wherever that is) is a changeling thing, and home is where you (yes, you) are. Wish me Mediterranean love, do. I wish it for you.
REAR END
The guy who stole my wife
Tarik Ahsan
Chengiz Khan, say historians, never lost a battle. He was the greatest general ever. But in my house there’s someone greater — someone against whom no one dares to fight, who has merely to make his wish known and all lay down their arms. Unlike Chengiz’s troops, he has little mobility and is totally unable to live off the land. Yet he is all-conquering.
I wake up, feeling groggy as usual. I shout for the newspapers, and Ali, who usually obeys me with alacrity, fails to turn up with them. I shout again, but to no avail. From some other room my wife yells that I should pick them up myself from the living room and not be the burden that I am. Reluctantly I rise from my favourite easy-chair and fetch them. The living room is deserted, so is my mother’s bedroom. I dive into the newspapers, curious to see which former ministers and legislators are the latest detainees. A few minutes later I suddenly realise that my wife hasn’t turned up with the usual steaming cup of coffee. I again vacate the easy-chair and shuffle off to the kitchen. It’s totally empty, a most unusual state of affairs at this time of the day.
‘Nigar, where’s my coffee? I am dying of thirst.’
‘You will get your coffee after 15 minutes. I am busy now.’
I lose my cool, for I can’t really wake up without the prodding of caffeine. In righteous wrath I head towards the fourth bedroom where I hear cooing sounds. I come upon a scene that might, without stretching things even a little bit, be described as the Adoration of the Magi. There is this little fellow on the bed, blissfully sucking his big toe, and grouped around him are my mother, my daughter, my wife, our cook and Ali. Only the cows and sheep are missing. Everyone is looking at him, wide-eyed and fascinated. The little fellow sees me and, ridding his mouth of his toe, breaks into that world-conquering smile of his. My mother suddenly realises that her long-suffering son is in the room, and beckons me to the bed.
‘Look, look, he has a third tooth today,’ she tells me.
Over two little incisors in the lower gum I get the merest glimpse of another in the upper. I don’t know why such a fuss should be made about that, but I can’t help picking him up and hugging him.
You have guessed it. He is the Chengiz Khan of our home. At least as far as I am concerned! Without even trying, he has taken over and made me a second-class citizen in my own house.
My daughter, looking a bit guilty, offers to make the coffee for me. Since my wife is pointedly ignoring me, I give her a reluctant nod. No one can make coffee as well as my wife — only she knows just how I like it. But nowadays her priority is her grandson. I am still in her list, but way down. If she has any time to spare after tending Chengiz, I might get some attention, e.g. if she isn’t too tired.
My daughter dumps my grandson on my lap and the cup of coffee on the side-table, telling me to look after him for a few minutes as she has things to do. When I ask her what mother is doing, she tells me she’s making food for the baby. I look at this ten-month-old imp, and he gives me another of his naughty but heart-melting smiles, and pulls my hair.
‘Hey, Ishaan, you son of a gun, you have stolen my wife,’ I tell him.
Getting tired of my hair, he pulls my nose. I look on helplessly, wondering if he knows the symbolism of the gesture.
HELL HATH NO FURY
Morality shmorality
Mashida R Haider
Dolls are a good way although
a little premature |
When I was eleven I got my first period. I remember being told that I had now become ‘old’, and that ‘henceforth I should stay away from boys’. So while I bled, and cried, and had stomach cramps and couldn’t for the life of me figure out why I was feeling this miserable (hormones, and they don’t get better with time, let me tell you) and cursed myself and cursed God and cursed womanhood, I was left to my own devices. Nobody told me about puberty, about sex, about why I was suddenly sporting a moustache and gaining ten pounds (it’s very traumatic, because they won’t even let you take off the moustache. I shaved once, but that’s another story altogether), but I was left to wonder. Years later, I would still cringe when I went to the medicine store to get sanitary napkins. I’d ask for them in a hushed voice and try desperately to look innocuous. My period was something ‘bad’, something that I would have to hide from the rest of the world at all costs. It shamed me, and made me hate myself every time I got it.
Let’s face it. Nobody tells you , or at least nobody I knew was told at the time. One of my friends, a little ‘advanced’ for her time, had briefed me on it, but all too briefly. I had listened goggle-eyed at her descriptions (not going to go into too much description). Another had thought she had blood cancer! Imagine, a little girl, thinking she had blood cancer for months on the end, till her mother found out. I didn’t know how people had sex till I was sixteen-I refused to believe it when my cousin told me. I thought people got married and prayed to get a baby.
So I was really surprised, when a month ago I was watching a show on one of the private television channels and a bunch of teenagers were talking about these very things. There were girls, and boys, and parents, and social workers. All in one room! Together! Of course, actual words weren’t mentioned, and periods were referred to as ‘it’ and sex was referred to as ‘holding hands’ (actually, that’s just me, I thought sex was just about holding hands) and there was a lot of squirming and coy smiles and blushing, but I was amazed at how clearly the girls were speaking. I felt myself getting freaked out, because they were talking about bad things.
The thing is, while we take cover under the shallow and flimsy veil of ‘middle class morality’, ‘societal norms’ and ‘religious values’, it still happens. Adolescence, I mean. Can’t hide that! And because we are not told, about ourselves, about our bodies, about changes and how to deal with them, we grow up with all kinds of misinformation and misconceptions. Just because pre-marital sex is a no-no, we are not told about sex. Really, that doesn’t stop it from happening, because, newsflash: sex is an instinct, not some guilty pleasure that only adults are allowed to indulge in. I know lots of people (and I would name them, if I were just a teensy bit more malicious) who would not condone this piece, and say SLATE is a family magazine and blah-di-blah, and….ok, I’ve lost you, so just shut your traps.
A friend of mine once went to her principal in the ‘best-English-medium-school-in-the-whole-world’, and asked her if she would include sex education in the school curriculum, in order to prevent sexual abuse. Her principal rose, huge body quivering in outrage. ‘No!’ she said in her authoritarian voice. ‘Absolutely not! The parents would complain!’
Well done, broad-minded school principal with the vision to create the next generation of leaders. That’s the way to do it. Let’s repress them all! Let’s not educate them about things that they would otherwise learn from the internet (’ban the websites!’ I can hear her say), pornography (gasp!), or better still, from paedophiles (but no, in our upright society of sterling and religious people, they don’t exist). But here’s a shocker: they do, and they probably went to your school!
Would I tell my daughter about her period? Yes, because it’s nothing to be ashamed of. Would I tell my children about sex? Yes, because if someone touches them intimately, or even looks at them in the wrong way, I would want them to come and tell me so I could hack that person into little cubes, as opposed to my children feeling guilty because they know something ‘bad’ is being done to them, and they somehow think it’s their fault, but they don’t know what it is. Would I encourage them to share confidences? Probably. Would I tell them to be comfortable with growing breasts and sprouting hair, and breaking voices, and sexual urges? Yes. And after all that, if they still take drugs, let’s just put the blame on the schools.
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