Que les anciens morts fassent place aux nouveaux morts
(May the old dead make way for the new dead – Milan Kundera)

I forgot. I forgot if I brushed my teeth, I think I didn’t because I don’t think I
have a case of bad morning breath. I go to the bathroom and check my tooth-
brush all crooked from the pressure I apply on it. It is hard and dehydrated.
So I haven’t brushed my teeth. And so I do. Mechanically, sadly, because I
am not supposed to forget if I brushed my teeth or not. Did I call my friend
after the operation? I also forgot. Not forgot to call, but forgot if I did. I don’t
want to call again, because it is difficult to talk after an operation, so there’s
a fair chance I would end up causing more distress. My email doesn’t keep
copies of outgoing messages; I deleted that option – what for? I thought. I
would always remember whom I have written and whom I have not. Except
that I now forgot.
Without touching them, I had problems recollecting which pair of eyeglasses
I am wearing today. I had difficulty sleeping during the night – not that the
transition of topic had some logic in it. I also felt this bad case of dandruff.
I must apply olive oil to my scalp I thought – a trick my secretary gave me
when I was working back at the airport. And it works better than any fancy
shampoo. A small dose of olive oil rubbed on the scalp and left to infiltrate
for some ten minutes.
My grandmother used to say that insomnia was for anyone who was “berden,
jou’en, khiyfen” (Cold, hungry or scared). I overate yesterday, it was the
first time I had lunch in a very long time. I had the leftovers from the previ-
ous night’s spaghetti dinner mixed with some Sloppy Joe we had a couple
of weeks back – all of them defrosted then reheated to make an improvised
spaghetti Bolognese. And then we had dinner at the Mongolian grill, where
I had a refill of my plate. So I wasn’t hungry, and the air-conditioning unit
was neither too hot nor too cold – not that my body detects temperature, but
I checked the digital monitor. Was I sacred? There were no chills down my
spine, this much I know. But I incessantly feel like – or whatever parameters
that passes as it – is slipping through my hands like rosary beads minus the
potential benefits of the prayer.
Even since I was a child I was instructed that praying is a good way to get
one to sleep, and whereas I do not debate its help to people who are scared,
I wonder if a light snack and a blanket is not more appropriate for those who
are hungry and cold respectively.

I try to pray, but those words uttered mechanically a million times don’t
come to my mind. I forgot them. I forgot.
But I remember this: I am naked, unaware of my nudity, attending a meeting,
in a hospital, with two other women. When I pay attention that I am naked,
I am too indifferent to care and instead of covering my private parts, I just
keep holding that log sheet, and wonder why hasn’t anyone notified me at the
meeting that I am totally naked.
And I remember something else, something coming from an internet café
back in Beirut:
“How much is your life worth?”
When I decided to seriously cut down on my spending because I needed
to save any money I could save, the internet connection was the first to be
sacrificed. Back then, between three brothers using the connection, the phone
bill was costing a fortune. And so I learned to frequent internet cafes. Being a
net junkie, I would frequently use two or three hours a day in different cafes.
There was one that opened by nine in the morning, the girl working there
would often walk up finding me already waiting by the closed door. It was
the most expensive charging 1,33 USD for an hour of browsing. There was
one for the noon-early afternoon session. Not far from the other, and charged
just one Dollar per hour. The third, offering seventy minutes of internet for
a Dollar was reserved for the night round – which was mostly about chats
rather than emails. A fourth one, I just reserved for Sunday and which I kept
for sending loads of photos taken during the weekend for my brother with
whom I am residing in the US right now. There’s a last one, which only
charges sixty six cents for an hour, but which automatically shoots up to two
hours if you miss the clock by a minute or so, rendering it the most expensive
of all in the long run. The reason why I never visited one more than once was
to show them that I am not an addict, and that basically, the browsing I did at
their place was enough for me.
“How much is your life worth?”
“Not much.”
“I will kill you anyway.”
But I hear not gunshots. But both of them do.
In their headphones, and the dead man suddenly springs from his chair slur-
ring insults at the other. He is not serious, just pissed that he got beaten at
“Counter strike” – for internet cafes also allowed game playing and were a
popular hangout for youths.

“How much is my life worth?” I think. Not much maybe.
Israeli jet planes air raided a safe house in Qana, ten years after the “grapes
of wrath” operation which hundred or so people back then, and I could hear
the pilots’ words in Hebrew (With an English subtext on the screen):
“How much is their life worth?”
“Not much”
“We will kill them anyway”
Among the dead an infant not even a day old. Thrirty three other children.
Thirty four if you do the math. Sixty people including men and women. Do
the pilots hear some Atariesque synthesizer bleeping in their helmets, or see
a cumulative digitalized set of points that allow them an extra missile once
they get to a certain threshold?
They don’t count. The people who are dead. Or rather, if they do, they only
count by numbers – never in value. Never as individuals. Never as people
who once held names.