Eli had asked Lea to come over because he wanted her to check on me.
I had just returned from working at Mark’s office in Beirut and was frantically typing on my laptop. I was wired, said Mark. So wired that I didn’t couldn’t tell what was real from what I imagined anymore. Screenshot everything he’d told me. Leave a trail of what is happening to figure it out when you’re back to your normal baseline. But what was normal? I had no idea anymore. When she arrived, Lea looked around the house and silently acknowledged that I had gone crazy. The space was as crazy as my thoughts, as mental as my speech as erratic as my behavior. Gently, calmly, and with all her love for me, she cleaned up and tidied up. Meanwhile, I was pacing around between my laptop, her, and Eli, desperately trying to explain to them that we were in the middle of a conspiracy that involved Bose speakers, every secret service agency I could think of, technology in all its forms, and the entirety of the human race. It’s not safe, Lea, I’d whisper to her, convinced that Eli’s uncle had black-bagged the place to spy on us. I could write a book about it, I’d tell her anxiously if only I could figure out what the fuck was going on. Come with me, she said kindly, leading me to the balcony where I insisted we go without our electronic devices. Just look at the stars and remember how insignificant we are, how insignificant this all is. I’d calm down for a minute, my thoughts quieting again as I gazed at the stars under the polluted sky of Mansourieh, hoping and praying that I was coming down from a bad trip. It’s just a bad trip; I’ve just been overworked; I had a bad vacation and didn’t get to sleep much. I’m just tired, oh so tired. You’ll be better tomorrow, my love, she’d reassured me gently. But I wouldn’t. When she’d left, I had tried to go to sleep next to Eli. He’d taken his pills for anxiety and depression and systematically fell asleep immediately. I was tossing and turning, unable to shut my eyes, so I decided to get up and read a book. The first book I found was William Gibson's Pattern Recognition. I’d only read Neuromancer by Gibson and had no idea what this one was about, but its title had spoken to me. Pattern Recognition. I was seeing patterns everywhere and trying to recognize them and understand them. “The future is there... looking back at us. Trying to make sense of the fiction we will have become.” Yup, this was the book I was supposed to read that night. But the font was small and faint, and I couldn’t pronounce words with the light in the bedroom. So I went upstairs and rolled a joint. It must have been the twelfth or thirteenth joint of the day. But who was counting anymore? In this house, with this man, there was no counting. Eli would roll one joint after the next, and I’d imitate him, each of us trying to keep up with the other. But who cared? We were anxious people and would use this as an excuse to smoke more. It would help us manage our stress and anxiety. It would bring us down or up, make us mellow or hyper, and help us work or relax. Any excuse was a good excuse to smoke up. In fact, we never needed a reason to smoke. Gibson’s book had long been left aside when my joint was done. I had turned on Netflix and was binging through whatever show was on. Probably BoJack Horseman. I have no memory of this particular season because I watched it after hours, in the dim light of the playroom/workroom where we’d spend most of our time and that Lea so carefully tried to tidy up. At some point, I fell asleep in front of the TV, only to be woken up a few hours later by the shaded sunlight. In retrospect, I had moments of clarity mixed with moments of what I thought were hyperactivity. After all, I managed to work, and my managers didn’t seem to notice anything wrong with my behavior. So I must have been fine. Eli and I were supposed to travel to Cyprus for a romantic weekend that week. But it seemed like his visa wouldn’t be ready on time. Instead, I suggested to Alex’s husband Charles to join Joan and me for the weekend in Ayia Napa. Charles was an ex-British soldier and trained security expert. He would manage to make me feel safe and would help me make sense of the insanity that was brewing in my mind. Friday morning, Eli took me to the bank because I had to sign some papers for a new credit card. I had managed to max out the one I already had and needed a new one to buy a new laptop for work. While waiting for my turn, a bearded man started screaming on the phone, “I’m not going to shoot, I’m not going to shoot.” In Arabic, that kind of statement sounds even more dramatic, especially when you’re sitting in the lobby of a bank full of people and an economic crisis is looming in the country. Thankfully he did not shoot, at least not while I was there. My credit card application had been sent back to the head office because I came too late to sign it. I got back in the car, and Eli drove me to my mother. During the drive, I was increasingly convinced he was a secret service agent. He was wearing his sunglasses for once and had those magnetic Bluetooth headphones on that he’d adjust every once in a while, making me feel like he was actually on the line with someone. At some point, we saw a truck with Hebrew writing on it. He pointed it out and said jokingly, they’re back for us. Little did I know that this minor insignificant incident would trigger an insane paranoid psychosis in my mind a couple of days later.
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AuthorI was born in 1986 in Lebanon. I'm still trying to find my passion in life and in the meantime I'm learning to navigate my bipolarity and redefining stability. Archives
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