"We exist in moments of gentle apocalypse"                       Roland Barthes      

 

17 May 06: Dead man

 

    Most of what I know about the circus in which I perform comes from the web.  But I had an interesting conversation with a translator the other day.

 

    This gentleman has 15 years on me easily, though people don't age well here to begin with.  His smoking habit makes me feel pretty good about mine, volume wise.  He told me that he was from Baghdad.  And we both agreed that Baghdad had seen better days. 

   

    He explained how 'we', America were cleaning up the mess that we started when a would be president was director of the CIA.  I could not comment given my lack of distinct familiarity of our past involvement here, but have to imagine that it was our interest not that of others that guided us.  This generally safe to say of most things.  I shrugged my shoulder and gave an 'oi vey' with accompanying hand gesture.  I asked if thought things would get better?  Not any time soon, he speculated, explaining the love of revenge and vendetta in these parts.

 

     I recommended that he read Juan Coles informed comment and he was confused how a Hispanic man speaks of the middle east.  After we were past that confusion I asked what he would do when he was done working in the translating business.

   

    'I don't know' he said.  'What am I supposed to go to America?  It is too expensive.  Stay here in Anbar? This place is hell'. 

   

    I sighed in agreement.  This place is better than Baghdad, but if you going to let that be your benchmark...

 

    'I will be killed' he says.  'It will happen eventually'.

 

    I looked at him straight on.  I am a quick wit generally.  But his tired eyes and expression would not allow anything that I could say to penetrate the reality of his statement.

 

    He is right.  The odds are not in his favor.  We both knew it.

 

    This was a new emotion for me.  To stare into the face of someone who pretty much knows their days are numbered, and that there really isn't a damn thing they can do about it but wait.  Death here is as ubiquitous as it is vain. 

 

    This is different than when I volunteered at the hospital.  I transported people from the ER to patient rooms, from the ER to the psych wing.  From the patient rooms to the morgue.  Once from the ER to the morgue, with a pause where I witnessed the reaction of the family as they met the figure on the table, after all efforts had been made.  Even my present work in health care architecture makes me a witness to less than pleasant glimpses into the human condition.

 

    This was not the same.

 

    This man will eventually pass from daily memory, but will likely come back to me in flashes. It is inevitable. 

 

    I do not want to forget.   

   

 

 

 

    In other local news...circumstances here.

 

    I don't have a copy or Sun Tzu's 'Art of War' with me, but am comfortable enough with my martial training (eastern variety) to think that this is not a good sign....

 

The morning commute...