The Bomb-Making Machine and the Commerce of Blood: Lullaby for the Ruins — Idealistic World

The Child’s Refuge and the Gambling of Monsters

He rolled around in bed for a few moments and pulled the blanket over his head with all his strength. He could hear his mother’s footsteps; she had come to wake him up. Now, he gave himself over to imagination, pretending to be asleep. He thought to himself: “If she calls me, I won’t rise, and she will leave. If I let out all the heat beneath the blanket and break into a sweat, she will depart without delay.”

Now that his face was flushed and dripping with sweat, his mother stood at his bedside, pulling back the blanket, calling out: “My dear child, what has happened?” Aziz had executed his little plan, resting peacefully in his bed, trading a cold winter day for the warmth of his blanket. He wondered if his friend Haziz had skipped school today too. Could he also have deceived his mother so they might be together somewhere nearby? In the midst of these thoughts, he drifted to sleep.

The Gambling Monsters in the Bomb-Making Machine

In his sleep, he dreamed that the monsters had turned on one another. A yellow-haired, sickly man resembling a reckless gambler laid all his cards upon the table, for another monster had been whispering to him for days that victory belonged to them—victory for those who came insanely thirsting for blood.

He snuffed the air, smelling the bombs, the grenades, and the stale blood among them. The scent of dead blood served as his robe of authority, driving him madly into the arena. I witnessed them in their military headquarters, performing a sensual, intoxicating dance around their weapons of war. Their counterparts across the distance transformed everyone into fuel for a madness-inducing bomb-making machine. One possessed a long white beard and a black robe, operating a massive apparatus to forge explosives, dragging everyone into its furnace.

I saw these monsters, despite all the malice they broadcasted through their megaphones, holding hands to tighten the belts of this machine. One brought the gunpowder of oblivion, the other the match of madness. In the darkness of command rooms, they signed their survival pacts with the blood of countless living presences. The machine was their common language—a language in which Living Presence (Jan) is merely cheap fuel driving the engines of power.

The Nightmare of Aziz and the Ruin of Minab

Aziz tossed in his sleep. Within his nightmare, he saw a deformed, ill man—sometimes yellow-faced, sometimes white-haired, braiding his long beard in front of the colossal bomb-forging machine. The monster fed endless crowds into its bloody furnace: children, elders, the displaced, and the homeless. Now they devour, pillage, and carry away the dead. Did Aziz see his mother wrapped inside one of those black body bags?

Aziz has witnessed thousands of lives consumed by this machine of madness, which spits out clusters of missile-like bombs from its output. The first strike tore through his home, dismantled his school, and shattered his hospital. Aziz saw Haziz; he saw the courtyard of Minab. His friends could not convince their mothers to feign illness. If only everyone had been ill today, if only a mild virus had kept everyone at home, so that the bloodlust of these power-gamblers would not have fed upon their flesh!

In the ruins of the school, Haziz lay motionless. العزيز will see him every day from now on. Perhaps the ruthless bearded ideologues whispered into his ear until he became a street insurgent to reclaim Haziz’s spilled blood; perhaps modern bloodsuckers pressed a button, sending countless bodies into the furnace of their bomb factories to rebuild Haziz in fantasy.

Freedom in the Filth and Commerce of Blood

Amidst this revolving madness of power-seekers, I see them dancing because one of the monsters has fallen. They bring Aziz into the square, shouting: “Dance, Aziz! The monster is dead!” Aziz sways his hands, his waist, his face, and the earth trembles. I hear his wailing voice, a dirge spoken through the lips of his friend.

I heard the quiet voice of someone trapped beneath the rubble, saying: “Build a fence, encircle it with iron, erect massive border nets around these bloodthirsty lunatics, and put all the monsters inside. Now let them fight, let them tear each other apart, and build their tower of madness with their own blood! Remove your bloodstained hands from the backs of living presences!”

On cheap sheets of paper floating in their hands, across glowing screens and magical boxes of deception, I see them boasting of their body counts, displaying their bombs, sinking their sharpened teeth into the throat of the enemy. How many schools have exploded? How many hospitals? How many homes in the beloved homeland or in the ruins of Haifa? Do you wish to celebrate because today’s casualty count is lower than traffic accidents? Do you expect us to dance in the streets because a monster died?

Lullaby for the Ruins of Minab

Do not trample freedom. Preserve it from the caged language and iron bars left in its throat. While tearing freedom to pieces, the monsters sang a collective chorus: “O people of the world, we bring you human rights! Come and take your share of freedom!” They scatter shreds of torn freedom from on high, and the impoverished jump, throw themselves to the ground, crawl, kiss the hands of power, and accept their allocated share.

Whether you are bearded zealots in dark caves or dignified rulers in modern high-rise towers, yesterday children died. Lives were torn apart whose only desire was simply to live—like countless non-human animals trapped in the mire of human cruelty. Leave us alone! Go behind your fences and tear each other apart until you are content, for blood is your only joy.

I shall pull the blanket over the ruins of Minab so that we may sleep, shielded from the greedy whines of human madness. I will sing a lullaby that awakens the ages. I will plant a day where Living Presence (Jan) is the sole absolute value of the world, and the mad remain confined behind fences until they regain tranquility. Sworn by your spilled blood, we shall forge a world with Aziz and Haziz where the only intrinsic measure of worth is Life itself.