Category: Uncategorized

“You and Mr. Symarian know each other?” Jenny asked incredulously.

“Something like that,” Amelia said.

“You could say we have a history,” their teacher added.

Amelia gave him a long look. “Interesting choice of word — ‘history’. I see you haven’t lost that dry sense of humor.”

“I don’t get it,” Josh said.

“Me neither,” Jenny added.

“It’s rather a long story, I’m afraid, and somewhat beside the point, in the current circumstance. Wouldn’t you agree Amelia?”

“Yes,” she said, and smiled. “Jenny, I believe we have things to discuss. Although I hope you don’t mind, I’ve summoned my little dog. He’s on his way now.”

“Bruno?” Josh said, turning white. “You’re going to bring that thing in here, with us?”

“Yes, of course you would have met him. He can be rather a terror at times, but I’m sure he’ll behave himself in front of company.”

Just then there was a high pitched yelp. “Bruno, you little rascal! Come up on the bed and say hello.” Amelia laughed as a little dog jumped up onto the bed and began licking her face with enthusiasm. When he was quite done, he perched himself comfortably in her lap, and regarded the three travelers amiably.

“That’s Bruno?” Jenny asked.

“I remember him as being, um, bigger.” Josh added.

“Yes, I can see how you would. When I am asleep, he can become quite the protective beast.”

Continuing the thread from the other day, this is a good day to take stock on what has happened in this country as a result of the attack upon the U.S. nine years ago today. I think we’ve all realized by now that there is no way for the extremist movement responsible for those attacks to “win” in a conventional sense. They have neither the economic power nor the military might to defeat the U.S. and its sphere of influence in an outright war.

But there are two things they can do: (1) discredit us to our political/economic allies, and to those we wish to be allied with, and (2) create a kind of cultural cancer within in our society that causes us to do that work for them.

In a sense, this method reiterates the attacks themselves, but on a far larger scale. The radical group that drove our own airplanes into our own skyscrapers was turning our very technological power against us. In what to us (certainly to me) was an unspeakable horror, civilian airplanes were turned into living bombs, which were used as detonators to convert our tallest buildings into even larger bombs — with the only victims being civilians.

So it is clear that our enemy, knowing we are vastly larger and more powerful than they are, choose to operate by a kind of Jujitsu. Basically, they use us as their weapon. And if current events are any guide, it seems they are succeeding.

The United States of America, arguably the most powerful and wealthiest nation in the world, is in danger of doing what its enemy does not have the power to do — turn potential allies of the U.S. into enemies of the U.S. That’s the real prize, and it’s horrifying to see our country playing right into this game.

To pick up the thread from the other day, the fact that so many people in this country are mislabeling a community center by pacifist Sufis as some sort of radical mosque is a phenomenal P.R. win for the Taliban and its allies. What better propaganda, what more perfect proof could be presented to the Muslim world that Americans don’t know the first thing about the 23% of the world population that is Islamic? You can almost hear the groans of despair among liberal and moderate Muslims around the world, those who have paid so much, often with their lives, to fight the very theocratic extremists we are at war with.

And on top of that, in what must be a kind of wet dream for the Taliban, we’ve got idiots like pastor Terry Jones wanting to burn peoples’ bibles. If you had to assign a dollar value on how much the Taliban would be willing to pay Jones for doing exactly what he is doing now, how much would it be? Well, let’s think about it. The U.S. is spending, by latest estimates, roughly $133 million dollars per day on the war in Afghanistan. If Jones’ stunt is worth, say, ten AWDs (Afghan War Days) for the Taliban, the Taliban should be paying him around $1.33 billion.

Of course any American citizen idiotic enough to burn islamic bibles at a time like this is clearly not intelligent enough to organize a wallet, never mind knowing how to keep a bank account, to it’s not clear how the Taliban would get the money to that dribbling idiot even if they wanted to. But they sure must be happy to have him on their side!

The best we can do at this point is to stop shooting ourselves in the foot. Cut out the idiotic protests of community centers built by people who hate the Taliban even more than we do. Let the world know, in no uncertain terms, that three hundred million people in this country — whatever their political affiliation — are utterly disgusted by buffoons like pastor Terry Jones.

And come together as a nation on this day of remembrance to denounce those politicians in this country who can’t be bothered to know the difference between one Muslim and another — whether that politician be Sarah Palin or Howard Dean.

“You know who I am?” Jenny asked, surprised.

“Yes,” Amelia said, “I know who you are.” She looked into Jenny’s face. “You have my eyes.”

“It’s true,” Josh said.

“Quiet, Josh,” Jenny said. “Girl time now.”

“Come here,” Amelia said, sitting up in the bed. “Let me look at you. You are so like me.” Jenny could feel the intensity of her grandmother’s gaze upon her face.

“Mom would never talk about you,” Jenny said, wishing she could think of something better to say. “I … I tried to get her to, but she wouldn’t.”

“No, of course she wouldn’t. What could she say? She doesn’t have the power — it visits only every other generation. And always different.”

“Your power is about time, isn’t it?” Jenny said, “That’s why he took you away.”

“Oh Jenny, there is so much you don’t understand. I was very angry at you, you know. At first we … I … thought you wouldn’t get this far.” She looked over at Mr. Symarian. “But once you brought the … once you brought him …”

“Hello, Amelia,” the teacher said quietly. “It has been a very long time, hasn’t it?”

“Yes, ages,” Amelia said, and suddenly she laughed.

The title of this post comes from my friend Andy. It was his wonderful response to a question I raised with him about the story I wrote the other day, I miss you. Why do you have to be such a nightmare?

I had told Andy that I’d decided, after some wavering, to tell that story as a science fiction story, rather than as an unexplained mystery of human behavior. It was a way for me to make the story’s intimations of cannibalism more, er, palatable.

Yet after posting the story, I felt that this choice had, in some important way, let my readers down. Yes, I was providing an easier way in. People could read the story, think about its ideas, and not stress out over them too much. After all, a reader could say, it’s just, you know, aliens, SciFi, X Files and Dr. Who, that sort of thing.

And that’s where it becomes a two edged sword. Yes, fantasy and SciFi give you a way to talk about things that would otherwise be out of bounds. Famously in this country, the TV show “Star Trek” was able to show an interracial kiss in 1968 — a time when such a thing was considered unsuitable for family viewing. But it got a pass because it was “just” science fiction.

Arguably that scene did a lot of good. Within a few years the taboo against interracial displays of affection on TV disappeared.

And yet, something was missing. The science fiction was serving as an excuse — a way of getting audiences off the hook.

And I think I may have done something similar with my story. As Andy so nicely put it, I was using metaphor as a prophylactic for the id. Yes, such a strategy is a way to take people to places they otherwise might not go. But in another way, it doesn’t end up taking them anywhere at all.

A story about people being devoured by sympathetic aliens who look like people may be intellectually interesting, but a story about people being devoured by sympathetic people — well, that forces you to engage much more deeply with what’s going on, and what’s at stake, and what it means to be human.

And isn’t that what literature is for?

It was time. Jenny walked up to the wall clock and began to move the minute hand forward. Slowly at first, and then faster and faster.

“Look,” said Josh, gesturing toward the window.

Jenny turned to look at the window, without taking her finger away from the minute hand of the clock. She could see the first faint gleams of light coming in through the window. She continued turning, now with renewed purpose. The light outside gradually became brighter. She had an eerie feeling that she was moving time itself. And in a way, she thought to herself, that’s exactly what was happening.

She glanced over at the bed, only to see her strangely young grandmother starting to shift, to toss and turn. It was like watching somebody having a bad dream. Or at least a very interesting dream.

“The sun is about to rise,” Josh said, staring intently out the window.

Jenny realized that she had been continually turning the minute hand of the clock, without really thinking about it. She was surprised to see that the time on the clock was now nearly six in the morning. She had moved time forward by six hours!

As she moved the time past the six oclock mark, she looked over at the bed, to see her grandmother Amelia suddenly open her eyes. Jenny took her hand away from the clock. Somehow she knew that advancing time would no longer be necessary.

For a long time Jenny’s grandmother just lay their, her eyes open, staring up at the ceiling. Then suddenly her head turned and she looked straight at Jenny. Jenny didn’t know what would happen next, but she felt a shiver run through her, as though her blood was about to freeze.

And then her grandmother Amelia spoke. “So, it’s you.”

I didn’t seriously think it would happen in my lifetime. Of course you always have those doomsday scenarios in the back of your mind, but it’s different when it starts to become real.

I have lots of friends who are German, all of whom are far too young to remember when that country let itself be killed from the inside. But they are all acutely aware of that death, and the terrible pain of rebirth after such a horror. They will likely understand what I’m talking about more than will folks living in the U.S.

Because now it’s coming here, the death. I didn’t pay much attention when it was just the professional jackasses — the Glenn Becks and Sarah Palins, and other cynical jokers making money hand over fist by stoking hate. You always get that kind of thing in a democracy. The more outrageously the fools on the fringe are pulling down their pants, the more you can be sure your free society is functioning. A free society can tolerate hate, and we don’t feel a need to suppress it because we know we won’t succumb to it.

But then good, decent people, educated people, people in my own family, started turning off their brains and muttering darkly about a “Ground Zero Mosque” where terrorists could gather to plot another attack.

The fact that there is nothing further in this world from a radical Islamicist than an American Sufi seems to be off the radar. I’m not even sure that people realize what a Sufi is. Sufis are to Islam what Quakers are to Christianity. They’re the pacifists, the conscientious objectors, the ones who believe in tending to the poor and sick, who believe in humility and universal tolerance, in reaching out in friendship to people who are different.

That the American people could be tricked en masse into believing that a community center built by Sufis — of all people! — is somehow an infiltration by a radical militant Islamic force, tells me that our nation’s brain cells have started to die. It happened in Germany, and now it is starting to happen to us.

We are on our way to becoming a nation of drooling, blithering idiots, stumbling in the dark and babbling nonsense like “it’s disrespectful to build a Mosque at Ground Zero.” Except it’s not a Mosque, and it’s not at Ground Zero. And that’s not even the most important thing.

The most important thing is to consider the following: Which group of Americans was most brutally harmed by the destruction of the World Trade Center? Was it the Italians, the Jews? Maybe the Irish?

Nope. Which group of Americans essentially got their eyes gouged out, their hearts ripped to pieces, their deepest dreams spat upon and crushed underfoot? Which Americans had to watch helplessly while someone effectively held their own children in front of them, their pride and joy, put a gun to those kids’ futures and pulled the trigger?

If you’re like most Americans, you probably harbor a silly fantasy that you have more reason to hate the bastards who took down the twin towers than anyone else does. But of course you’re wrong. In fact, you have no idea.

Reason to hate is watching somebody destroy everything you’ve spent your life building. Reason to hate is watching your beautiful young sons and daughters, U.S. citizens born in this country, who always believed in its promise of liberty and equality, suddenly finding their friends and community turning on them with suspicion.

Can you imagine anybody with more reason to hate than the American Sufis? And yet, their response is to build a community center open to all, a gesture of peace and interfaith community in the middle of all the hatred.

The fact that we are not even paying attention to who these people actually are, the fact that the majority of Americans — even New Yorkers, I am deeply ashamed to say — are mouthing off hateful idiocies easily refuted by a simple Google search, tells me that it may already be too late.

We’re already half way to wearing the swastikas, and darkly muttering “kill the Jews”, except this time it’s not Jews. We are idiotically demonizing our own peace loving friends and neighbors who are the enemy of the Taliban, and all it stands for, to an extent we cannot even imagine.

I see this beautiful nation melting down, its brain cells failing, becoming necrotic. Much as I would like to blame it on the rancid self-serving poison of the Sarah Palins and bastards like pastor Jones who wants to publicly burn the Koran, I know that would be dishonest. For it is not them, it is us.

John F. Kennedy once said: “The great enemy of the truth is very often not the lie, deliberate, contrived and dishonest, but the myth, persistent, persuasive and unrealistic.” Yes, I know we are a wounded nation, I appreciate that. But rather than rise to the occasion, rather than face the hard and complicated truth of our circumstance, we are letting ourselves be anaesthetized by convenient myth, and that way leads to the sleep of the waking dead.

Unless we wake up in time. I sincerely hope we wake up in time.

Josh strode over to the little clock hanging on the wall. “Doesn’t look like much, does it?” he said. “But I’m pretty sure it’s been set to midnight for a long time now.” With a decisive gesture, he reached out to move the minute hand.

“Well?” Jenny said.

“Darned thing’s stuck,” he answered. He glanced over at Mr. Symarian, who merely shrugged. It was clear the teacher was being very careful not to interfere.

“I wonder,” Jenny said. “Maybe it’s just stuck for you.”

“I don’t get it,” Josh said.

“Well, after all, she’s my grandmother, not yours.” Jenny walked over to the clock and gave the second hand a little nudge with one finger. It moved easily.

“Well, I’ll be darned,” Josh said. “You totally called it.”

“Well you know,” Jenny said, feeling quite pleased with herself, “everybody does something. You’re the path finder, and I, it seems, am the path changer.”

“Totally,” Josh said enthusiastically. “I tag ’em and you bag ’em.”

“Yep,” Jenny said, “you see ’em and I tree ’em.”

“I pick ’em and you sic ’em.”

Jenny laughed. “You spot ’em then I got ’em.”

“I name them and you tame them.”

“You smell ’em and I fell ’em.”

“I bring ’em and you sting ’em…”

“Stop! I beg you, for God’s sake, please stop!!”

Josh and Jenny both turned to look at the source of the interruption. “Why Mr. Symarian, you’re shouting,” Jenny said. “Are you ok?”

“Does it look like I’m bloody ok? If you keep this up any longer my head will explode.”

“Sorry,” Jenny said, “we were just, you know, having fun.” Then she had a worrisome thought. “You don’t mean that, um, literally, do you?”

“No Jenny, not literally. I was employing a metaphor.” The teacher managed to get hold of himself. “Well, at least one thing is quite obvious.”

“What’s that,” Josh asked.

Mr. Symarian looked from Josh to Jenny and then back again. “You two are perfect for each other.”

The other day Heather issued the following challenge:

“Write a story using your [It’s in the Blood] theory around this line: `I miss you. Why do you have to be such a nightmare?'”

Herewith is my humble attempt to rise to the occasion.

***

“I miss you. Why do you have to be such a nightmare?”

“Maybe because I’m hungry. You’re the one munching on tasty treats.”

“I’m sorry,” she laughed, “were you talking? Because I’m eating here.”

“Look, I’m sorry about the work thing, but I’m scheduled to get there in a few days. It’s the best I could do. Until then, guess you’re having all the fun.”

OK lover,” Heather put her food down. “The Robinsons can wait. They were ok I suppose, but now they’re just meat.”

His eyes crinkled on the screen as he laughed, in that way that always made her heart melt. “The little ones,” he said, “they’re the crunchiest. You just can’t fake that.”

“I like when we talk about food,” she said, “when we’re apart. It helps — gets us in touch with our animal nature.”

“If we were in the same room,” he smiled, “think of how many more ways we’d have of getting in touch with our animal nature.”

“Yum,” she said, “Something to look forward to. Did you ever wonder,” she asked, licking her fingers, “whether there’s a connection? I mean, you and I have this thing together. You know I love you, but also, it’s, well, it’s hot — I know it’s hot for you too. Do you think that’s why we like the same sort of people?”

“Well,” he said, giving it some thought, “I don’t think we like exactly the same sort of people. Same families, yes, but you like the older ones. I’ve noticed you pick out the parents, and when you’re done there’s nothing left but bone and gristle. So we don’t really have the same tastes.”

Heather idly picked up a thigh bone and started pulling at it with her fingers. “OK, maybe I’m just a romantic. For me it’s about family. You know how important family is to me. I know some couples, they don’t have any tastes in common. Like, she’ll want to eat Italian, and after the hunt he’ll end up munching on some Brits. You and me, we’re not like that.”

“We’re only human,” he smiled.

“You say that like it’s true.” She looked at her hand closely, flexing the fingers. “The science is good, I’ll give you that. The natives can’t tell the difference, which I guess is good. If they figured out someone was picking off their young for snack food, this world wouldn’t be such a popular vacation spot.”

“That’s why we choose these primitive worlds,” he said. “Makes it easier to win their trust.”

“That’s the name of the game, baby,” she said, picking a piece of gristle delicately out of her teeth. “Gotta be nice to the food. I mean, that was the whole point of the Ethical Vacation Act, right? Only eat people who invite you over. Keeps the hunt fair.”

“I love when you talk ethics,” he smiled. “Gotta go though, this call’s costing us a fortune. See you in a few days.”

“Hurry, I miss you,” she said, “Remember, next Thursday we’re having the Goldfarbs for dinner.”

“OK, let’s take inventory,” Josh said. “There are some things we know for sure, or at least for pretty sure. We know the riddle exists, and we know — from that storybook — that the solution probably has something to do with turning the darkness outside into light.”

“Yes,” Jenny added, “and we’re also pretty sure that we’ll find the clue we need somewhere here in this room.”

“Right.” Josh was looking around the room carefully. “It’s a pretty boring room, isn’t it?”

“Yeah,” Jenny said. “But Mr. Symarian said — before he stopped talking — that we were staring the answer right in the face.”

“Wait, say that again.” Josh said.

“I just said that he told us we were staring the answer in the face.” Jenny frowned. “I know, it seemed weird to me too. Rooms don’t have faces, only people have faces. And there are no pictures here.”

“People,” said Josh with a smile, “are not the only things with faces, are they?”

Jenny looked at him, feeling a bit lost. Then all at once she got it.

They both shouted the answer at the same time. “The clock!”

There are some decisions that seem obvious once they occur to you.

And rarely has there been such an obvious way for me to be patriotic and support my country.

I am going to make a substantial financial contribution to the building of the new Community Center at Park51 in downtown Manhattan.