Frog1

I don’t know how these feelings began to play inside of me. I don’t know the exact nature of these feelings. All I know is that I began to experience them eversince I can remember, and they have never ceased to increase in power as the years went by. Because of them, I feel as though I am an intruder in this world. An intruder in my own home, and among my own family. An intruder in the streets of my neighborhood. An intruder in the society as a whole. An intruder on Earth.

Oh yes. I am an intruder, and my name is Mustafa[1]. Yes, my name is Mustafa, and when I am at home, I feel more like an observer than an actual participator in the making of family life. And when I walk in the streets, I walk as though I have my own private path stretching in front of me, I walk as if I am breathing a different sort of air than everybody around me - sometimes this makes me wonder about my very humanness.

Am I really a human being? Am I? Why can’t I be a jinn for instance, a jinn trapped in a human mold by some ancient narrow-minded prophet? Jinn are definitely better than people you know; they have less limitations somehow, their vistas to the world are much wider - they can live on land and in the sea without any adjustment problems whatever; they can fly, with and without wings. And they know so well, the art, or should I say, the science of magic.

And what can we do as opposed to all this? We simply coexist with our own private feelings of loss and inferiority. We accept them. We glory in them. We turn them into virtues. Ennobling virtues.

This has always been the case with us. This has always been the case. But, personally, personally, I find it very hard to play along. I am tired of such games you see, I am tired of such feelings. Somehow I have always been tired of such games and feelings. I was born tired of them, it seems. And I would simply want to fly someday.

Yes, fly, fly, this is my actual wish, I hereby reveal it to everybody, and let the mockers mock. Oh let them mock. That’s what they do best anyway. That’s all they are good for.

Today I got transformed into a frog. Yes, a frog. Yesterday I wanted to fly, and today I found myself to be nothing more than a little measly frog, a disgusting croaking fly-eating frog. And in the words of that oft misunderstood man, Musaylama the Liar[2], I addressed myself this morning while standing in front of my all-revealing mirror: “oh frog croak, oh, how often you croak, with half of you sunk in the water and half of you stuck in the mud, neither able to encompass the water, nor to prevent the drinker from drinking.”

Ah, to be a frog. This is my fortune it seems, the miserable fate which I have to accept and accept with all the willingness in the world, just as my mother accepts hers, ever so willingly, ever so willingly, that is until the right moment comes to reject it. Flat out.

Oh mother, mother, what a great woman she is! She is just a housewife you know... just a housewife, ha ha, as if it is easy to be a housewife nowadays, as if it has ever been easy, especially in an Islamic society, especially with a family like ours, with its six ever so different members, and with mother having to play the role of the arbiter of all disputes that do occur, and the harmonizer of all the different temperaments that exist.

For indeed mother is the heart of our family, and that is indeed the role of the mother in the traditional family. And our modest family is in truth a very traditional family, traditional to the point of total and complete effacement, self-effacement that is.

I soared around mother today, in my not-so-cute frog-like manner, and while constantly croaking and catching flies. Mother was doing some house cleaning all the while.

Oh, how devoted she is to the service of this house and its residents. My father must have recognized that quality of devotion in her ever since she had been the neighbor’s shy little daughter, and it is for this reason, and this reason alone it seems, that he must have married her.

And it is for this very reason of course, that he, ever so constantly, betrays her. Oh yes, he betrays her.

For like all traditional men in Muslim societies, father is in desperate need for the virtuous, motherly, and servile woman in his life on the one hand, and to the woman-prostitute, or to be more exact, the women-prostitutes on the other. That is the accepted tradition in the standard Muslim society, and has been it seems, ever since… well, ever since God can remember I bet.

Mother, of course, was not unaware of my father’s multitudinous affairs. That too is one of the whole-marks of traditional Muslim societies - the practically omniscient women. Rather, she learned to ignore them. For as long as he does not actually take another wife beside her, the whole matter must seem quite irrelevant to her. Yes, irrelevant. Irrelevant that is until the right moment comes. For I know my mother all too well, perfectly well, if I may say so myself. And I…I love her. Hmm. And I pity her.

For oh, how downtrodden is the traditional mother! Oh, how downtrodden are all mothers. Their lives consist of nothing more than pain it seems, labor pains, rearing pains, growing pains, separation pains. And separation of course, is yet another kind of betrayal. Don’t you think?

My sister Muzna has gotten married a few years ago and left the house. That was a betrayal.

My big brother Hisham is serving in the army, in the far away post in northeaster Syria, and he doesn’t come home except during his brief leaves. That, too, is a betrayal.

And as for my little brother Majid, well, when he is not at his school, he is either playing in his room or at the neighbor’s. Now, that’s a series of betrayal right there. And that’s why…

that is why, I have long decided to spend most of free time at home, you know, so I can keep mother’s some company; my presence could ease her pain somehow, I hope. In this way, my betrayal of her would not be so…felt, so stinging.

“And you? What are you still doing here? Why don’t you go out with your friends, instead of living like a damn shellfish?”

Naqnaqnaqnaq[3]. Thus, and in such a sudden and unexpected manner, the time has come for this frog to dive back into the murky depths of his home-lake, and his obligatory doze of betrayal.

Why should I be called Mustafa when religion means so little to me, in fact, nothing, nothing, and this has always been the case with me? For had my name been Nadim, Samir, Durayd, or Maher, I would have understood and might have appreciated it, for these names, to my knowledge, are totally devoid of metaphysical judgment. But Mustafa...Oh, how I hate this name.

My father reminded today, while we were having dinner, of a discussion we had had shortly after my graduation from high school. He reminded me of this discussion in a his usual casual manner, then he laughed and forced me to join him in laughter by poking me continuously in my stomach, as though I am some sort of a damned teddy bear.

The discussion had taken place more than a year ago, and it focused on my desire to change my name from Mustafa to Nadim. Father had told me many things then, some comical, others serious, to convince me to change my mind. Of these things, I only remember the following words, because they had distressed me severely then, and they still do so now. No other words of my father has ever had such a prolonged effect on me, and I seriously doubt if any ever would again.

“And haven’t you found any other way to begin to prove your manhood silly boy?” These are the words.

Why, is there a better way for anyone to begin proving his manhood father? That was the kind of reply I should have made then, but didn’t. It didn’t occur to me then you see. Oh how I regret it. oh how I really regret it.

I don’t know how or why, but I find myself nowadays having already started to jot down my thoughts and feelings about things, about the daily happenings of my life, about my remembrances, ideas and observations. Still, it was only today that I actually made the conscious decision to do so, and to continue on doing so, for as long as the need to do so, the need within, shall last.

I am being inspired it seems, I am receiving revelations it seems, from some kind of an internal deity, through some kind of a delusional medium.

From now on, I shall jot down all my thoughts and feelings that would get filtered through to my finger tips, giving that unusual itching sensation, I shall encapsulate my thoughts and feeling in words, and shall record them all on various pieces of colored stationary without any reference whatever as to the exact dates, for time seems to be quite irrelevant to me, as far as this matter is concerned. Revelations after all are timeless, aren’t they?

And so, on every Friday, I shall spend an hour or so to collect the pieces together in a neat and organized folder. In this way, Fridays will acquire a certain amount of holiness for me as well. A different sort of holiness, I admit, but that suits me rather well. Yes, it suits me well.

And who knows, I might end up producing my own gospel in time, my own holy writ.

Abu Adnan, the owner of our neighborhood’s bookstore, is an avowed atheist. But, in spite of this, he is one of my dad’s closest friends. For as father often says nowadays: �it is the way you treat people, and not your personal faith that is the true key to friendship.� Oh, how very wise of you father to say such a noble thing, to think in such noble terms. Oh very wise indeed.

Still, there is no denying that Abu Adnan is indeed a very kind and generous man, so generous, in fact, he had never bothered to remind my father that the aforementioned statement, which father keeps on repeating and attributing to himself, is in actuality a little wisdom coined by Abu Adnan himself.

Anyway, and as far as I am concerned, the very presence of somebody like Abu Adnan in this world, undermines, shatters, the very foundation of all religious faiths. For what is the purpose of believing in gods, angels, prophets, holy books and all other metaphysical mumbo jumbo, if one can indeed lead a decent life without such beliefs? Is it to guarantee oneself a place in some presumed paradise? Well, to hell with that paradise I say, the paradox notwithstanding. Let’s build Paradise here I say, yes, here, now that will truly be something worth striving for. Don’t you think? Don’t you believe?

Well, no matter, today I went to Abu Adnan’s bookstore to get some new books to appease, if not actually satisfy, my voracious appetite, for I am as they say a bookworm. And as usual, I did not have any specific titles in mind, I have always relied on Abu Adnan’s own recommendations in this regard, and have never regretted it. He makes me read about everything and the books he recommends have always been exciting to me.

This time, Abu Adnan recommended that I should read a few books about the life and works of the famous Sufi figure al-Hallaj, when I inquired as to this particular choice of subject and time he said: “Because the time has come for you my son to know what the future might hold for someone like you, living in a theocratic society.”

Indeed, Abu Adnan has always referred to the Syrian society as a theocratic society, mainly because the Islamic law was still followed in civic affairs, and because a huge inheritance of religious traditions still control the minds of most of its people.

As for al-Hallaj, I have heard of him of course, in fact, I had read a little about him not too long ago, and one thing that jumps immediately to mind when you mention his name is the fact that he was crucified sometime in the early tenth century AD, for his supposedly blasphemous beliefs.

Hmm. Would I be crucified one day? Is that what Abu Adnan is trying to tell me? But why wasn’t he crucified then? Or will he still get crucified? Or has he gotten crucified already somehow?

The beautiful and always effervescent Su’ad came to our house this morning for one of her brief and interesting visits. She is a real good friend of mother’s, and has been for the last six years, that is ever since she ceased to be father’s mistress.

She was his favorite you know. Yap, for five long years, she was. In fact, she was the first and only one of his numerous mistresses that he had ever proposed marriage to, as far as I know that is, father can still surprise me you know. Anyway, father had wanted the marriage to remain a secret in order to avoid a confrontation with mother, but Su’ad had refused, for though, she had already reconciled herself to the idea of becoming somebody’s second wife, she still found it hard, too hard it seems, to accept the idea of becoming someone’s secret wife. Father, however, in his unfathomable wisdom, had kept on pressuring her day after day, meeting after meeting, until one day she came to our house, introduced herself to mother, and told her everything.

When father heard of this, he got so angry with Su’ad, so furious, so mad, he threw her out of the house he had bought for her and left her homeless and penniless. For Su’ad Druze family, you see, had already disowned her because of her “loose conduct,” by the Druze traditional standards that is, so now she had no one. No one, that is, but mother.

For when mother heard of what father had done, she got so angry, so furious, and so mad in her own turn, that she sent to Su’ad all of her jewelry and all of the money she could find in the house with a little note saying: “A love relationship which lasts for five years is really a form of marriage, being chased out of your house is a form of divorce, which means that this money and jewelry is your late dowry.” Yes, believe it. In her instinctive and uneducated way, mother had stumbled upon a very liberal notion of marriage and divorce that has been practiced for quite a while in the western part of the world. On the other hand, she might have seen something along these lines in some American movie or something. Who knows?

What matters is that Su’ad did accept mother’s generous gift, and went on to buy herself a comfortable little apartment, and a store in which she sold quality women clothes, the store, having been continuously refurbished through the years, is now considered to be one of the best in the country. And Su’ad’s brothers, the selfsame brothers who previously disowned her and even thought about killing her to redeem the family’s honor, now come to visit her regularly in her place to ask for handouts.

For mother’s gesture was not merely symbolic. Mother has never been in the habit of making mere symbolic gestures you see, this is one of her undying traits. Believe me. Believe me. As far as father was concerned, well, he couldn’t do a damn thing about what mother had done, and had no choice but to go on and buy mother some new jewelry, slowly replacing her old ones. And he never discussed the incident. Never.

All this had happened in the full light of day you know, that is why I know so much juicy details about it. I was twelve at the time.

From then on, Su’ad became a close friend of mother’s, and she began to visit us on a regular basis, when father was not home of course. And by the way, last time Su’ad had come to visit, a little less than a month ago, she brought with her a bag full of money as a repayment for her debt to mother. Mother immediately donated the money to the renovation of the neighborhood’s mosque, thus increasing the family prestige in the neighborhood. Good old mother. Personally, I would have donated the money to some orphanage. But then, I am just an atheistic bastard.

Su’ad is now thirty three years old and she looks more beautiful than ever, which means a lot, I am sure, to a woman whose major curse is her beauty and her ebullient femininity. I have noticed Su’ad’s beauty ever since I laid eyes on her, and I began to think of her often as I masturbated, she felt so real to me I sear I could almost reach out and touch her naked body that floated in front of me.

And what made my fantasies seem so sensual and real to me was the fact that Su’ad had always shown a very strong interest in me, and every time she came to visit us she brought with her gifts to everybody in the family, except my father naturally, but my gift had always been the most thoughtful and elegant, if not the most expensive, of them all. This is really strange, don’t you think? I mean, even after Majid got born, and I ceased to be the youngest one in the family, she still showed much more interest in me than anybody. I have never really understood the reasons behind her interest. Never.

I am eighteen years old now, and I can still feel her special interest in me. Could there be something sexual involved here? Or at least, could that interest assume a sexual dimension now that I am eighteen? Somehow, somehow, I am tempted to believe that.

I have studied Su’ad’s body very carefully today as I sat in front of her in our living room, it has become a habit of mine to do so whenever she is around, I was trying to find the new changes, if any, trying to get some inspiration for another sleepless night and another alluring fantasy, and that had never seemed to disturb Su’ad, although I am quite willing to bet that she is not exactly unaware of my habit. I wonder. Oh yes, I wonder, has she ever done the same to me in her mind? Perhaps. Then again, probably not.

Anyway, I don't think I have any genuine feelings towards Su’ad. It is just lust, pure and simple, a passing whim that comes and goes. Nowadays, I fantasize about Su’ad only when I see her, I have sex with her in my mind, I masturbate at night, and the next day I forget all about her. And as far as she is concerned, I don’t think she could ever be interested in me, sexually that is. And why should she? Some of the most rich and influential men in Syria are after her, and she is known to have had affairs with quite a few of them. She uses sex, you see, to get what she wants, whenever she wants it, guarding her independence all the while. Good for her, I say. Although I still don’t understand the nature of her interest in me.

By the way, Su’ad did not neglect to bring us gifts with her today. For no matter what mother says and does, Su’ad seems incapable, and not simply unwilling, to break this habit. Since she had just returned from Egypt, our gifts this time were all so very Egyptian, mine included a golden pocket watch with a picture of the pyramids carved on top, she knows I like this kind of things, and I have already told you that she spares no expense when it comes to my gifts. The other gifts, the less valuable ones from a purely materialistic point of view, included a little bronze statue of the Sphinx and a book titled “Pleasure Marriage,” authored by the late Egyptian journalist called Faraj Fouda.

I have heard of the book before you know, and have definitely heard of its author. He got assassinated a few years ago by Muslim extremists for his vehement, although not very scholarly, assault on their false interpretations of religion and history.

Is there some kind of telepathic link between Abu Adnan and Su’ad? Am I destined to be assassinated someday? Is this why I am called Mustafa? Is this what I am chosen for? Is it? Is it?

[1] Mustafa is an Arab word which means �the Elect.� It is a common name in the Arab countries as well as many Muslim countries, seeing that it is one of the honorific titles given to the Prophet Muhammad.

[2] Musaylamah the Liar: another one of Arabia�s self-proclaimed prophets. He appeared at the same time as Muhammad, and might have started his own career even before Muhammad. Unlike Muhammad though, he was well-received in his own tribe of Bani Hanifah and was made the tribe�s spiritual leader. Under his leadership, and after Muhammad�s death, the tribe of Bani Hanifah tried to disassociate itself from the religion of Islam and the tribe of Quraysh (Muhammad�s tribe). But the armies of the first Caliph of Islam ended their short rebellion in AD 634 , and Musaylamah, along with many members of his tribe, were put to the sword. The name Musaylama itself is actually a pejorative diminutive invented by Muslims long ago, in addition, that is, to the appellation of �the Liar. Musaylamah�s real name was Thamamah bin Kabir, he was known to his followers as the Merciful of Yamamah, in reference to the region in which his tribe dwelt.

[3] This is how frogs croak in Arabic.