I threw Senwar's wooden stick at them.
“I threw Senwar’s wooden stick at him or them” is a new Arabic proverb, which in some contexts, it can be used metaphorically to suggest taking a bold or significant stand or gesture of defiance.
And if you follow the news recently you probably know who Senwar is.
He threw his wooden stick at the face of the shit of this world and left.
2019, a lazy Friday afternoon. I’m sprawled out on the bed… breathing? Maybe. Eyes fixed on the ceiling, though, watching this tiny black dot—Henry, the jumping spider—crawling across the plain white. What a patience!
Radio’s yammering in the kitchen, something about the Middle East. My wife’s singing along, light, upbeat.
“Honey!” she called, voice lilting. “They reached an understanding! The war might end tomorrow! Isn’t that great news?” She wandered into the room. I know her footsteps; she glides, barely touching the ground. Her voice was always bright.
“We could visit your family soon, yeah? What do you think?” She caught me. “You’re stoned, aren’t you?” She laughed.
“I’m making steaks and salad. Could you grab us a couple of persimmons and some smoked Old Amsterdam from the store?”
Henry reached the other side of the ceiling, and I felt as white as the surface above his tiny hairy legs.
Smoked Old Amsterdam—Ha! No one smokes Old Amsterdam; she probably meant Gouda. Same difference. Just another cheese, and today there’s already plenty to celebrate.
I just picked up my passport—the German passport.
Weird in my hands, red and stiff and shiny, and I can’t quite sort what I’m feeling. She doesn’t know yet. She’d be overjoyed, talking about trips, freedom from visa lines, and all that. But to me, it’s weird—like finally opening that locked attic door in your grandfather’s house, only to find nothing special inside. Just four walls, dusty and quiet.
Was it ever worth it?
Meanwhile, the radio’s saying the war is ending. What a coincidence. I might even head to Yemen soon, maybe find a widow there and offer my condolences, knowing full well my taxes paid for that rocket that took her family.
Yeah, I protested, threw rocks, cursed on social media. I chanted, “ACAB!” in a cop’s face. Still, I paid my dues, feeding the beast with every paycheck—funding tax breaks for the German big arms manufacturers who sell their latest toys to the Emirates and Saudi Arabia. All to bomb Yemen.
Not the “people” though, they said, just the Houthis, the zealots dragging us back 1,000 years.
But five years in, and it’s just bombed-out houses, dead kids, wiped-out families. Houthis strut through “peace talks,” but the rusty hot pipes never stop blazing.
I bankrolled that, paid for all of it, and in return, got a slip of paper declaring I’m now officially “civilized.”
“Honey! You alright?” Kathi asked from the bedside, her voice soft. “Are those… tears?” “No, darling, they’re guilt drops.” I thought.
I participated in killing my own people! And that very stupid rocket made a crater in my heart just like that one in the ground in Sana’a.
Then my mom burst in, the way she always used to, and my sister trailing behind her, calming her down, the way she also always used to. My head’s spinning now, confusion swelling with sadness. I need air. I open the window, take in the breeze.
The big chestnut tree’s waving back, leaves shuffling like they know something.
I spot a cat on a branch, mouth moving as if trying to say something.
“Hey! Hey!” it calls. “Is your mom there?”
This is bad—no good comes from a cat asking for your mother.
“Damn you, Bruno,” I mutter, “laced weed again.”
I look behind me and I see my mother floating, my sister is shouting in fear, and Kathi is looking for a song in Spotify.
Can you recognize a bad trip while you’re in it? Is being high like lucid dreaming? Can you hear your thoughts while being high, knowing that you’re high in the moment? Well, I hear my thoughts now, don’t I? Or maybe I’m just talking to myself?
My mom is now floating towards the window and the cat is smiling like that Cheshire cat.
“I told you; I’ll take her!” it whispers, menacing.
“Who are you? What do you want?” I ask, not scared, just disoriented.
“I’m the devil, the one and only.”
I burst out laughing, and it takes me a minute to choke it down.
“Devil of what?”
“The devil!” says the cat.
“Listen, cat… devil…devil-cat, I’ll say it once—leave her alone. Come closer, and say what you want, or I swear, I’ll hunt you down and destroy you!” I manage, calmly.
“Fine, go ahead,” the cat sneers, challenging.
The yard’s ours. Always has been, the big chestnut tree in the center, trash bins to its right, a scrappy hemp plant trying to stay hidden to its left.
Then a whole zoo of strange, twisted creatures crawl in, gathering under the tree. Their eyes flicker.
“They came from the underworld for you,” the cat says.
All the animals of the underworld watched from a distance, looking afraid, hiding behind the chestnut tree in our yard. The cat, and after her last words, jumped onto another branch of the big tree by the window. I threw a wooden stick at her, I found on the window frame and hit her left eye; she tried to leap onto the window but failed and fell into the deepest depths of the underworld. I could no longer see her.
A fly with a dog’s head fluttered up.
“The great elephant-crocodile greets you and thanks you for your bravery.”
Behind the tree, the animals are celebrating, howling.
“The devil goes to hell!” I shout, smiling wide.
The cat leaps back from the earth, eyes ablaze, darting left and right, landing on the stones in the yard, eyes locked on me.
“I’ll give three chickens to whoever brings me her head!” I shouted.
“Five!” a tiny dog barks, wagging his snake-tail.
“Alright, five from Corinth Market by the outskirts of Beirut, and five from Oshida the Japanese!”
The animals go berserk, chasing after her.
“Damn you all!” the cat hisses. “Damn you!” And just like that, she’s gone. The animals cheer wildly, frenzy in their eyes.
“A promise is a promise!” I yelled from the window. “I’ll bring you all the chickens!”
I turn, and my mother’s there, back to her usual self. I get her some water, settle her, and ask my sister to look after her.
Kathi hasn’t found the song on Spotify yet.
Three days’ walk to the Corinth Market at the outskirts of Beirut, safe but long. I bought a hundred chickens, roast a hundred more in Oshida’s bistro. Six days later, I’m back, handing them out to the animals, which were still celebrating.
The little dog with the snake-tail tugs my sleeve. “I bit the cat first—I get more birds!”
“Of course,” I whisper. “You take 5 now and Tomorrow, go to Oshida, there’ll be two big roasted ones waiting just for you.” He yaps, happy, tail wagging.
We celebrated all night, animals dancing, howling.
Next morning, I wake up in the Corinthian forest in the middle of Khan Yonis in Ghaza. And there, at the edge, stands the cat, smug as hell.
“Why are you fighting?” she asks.
“Fighting? Nonsense.”
“You are,” she insists. “Fighting yourself.”
“Bullshit,” I say. “If I ever fought anyone, it’d be you and maybe God.”
“That’s a bingo!” said the cat.
“What?” I asked
“I know He started it. Didn’t even bother explaining. And here I am, making the same mistake, I suppose.” She smirks.
“Let me tell you a story”, she continued.
“You know, after centuries of absurd wars between countless generations of humans and that God—a mix of fights for freedom and meaningless bloodshed, still blazing hot even today.
One day, as the army of angels prepared to launch an attack on a part of the earth that humans had carved out for themselves, declaring it an empty home for all, even devoid of God, a sense of futility stirred within Him.
And to avoid getting lost in details, that could lead us to yet another war, we’d better set some parameters, some definitions, a few points.
There is a difference between the absurdity that humans feel and that sensed by the supreme power. Human thinkers have said that absurdity is the roaring, relentless river in which they are trapped—a constant struggle between an instinctive urge to reach the shore, to dry off, brew some coffee, smoke a little hemp, and relax, and a growing conviction that there’s no shore to reach. Some optimistic, strong-willed ones said later or perhaps simultaneously that some had indeed found the shore and were now resting after coffee and a smoke, watching that same roaring river and their siblings still trapped in it. They are now the existentialists, engaged in an honorary state of relaxed search for meaning in all that roaring absurdity.
And when they, the optimists, proclaim this in the midst of that soaked chaos, they also see those who have raised their hands and screamed that there is no shore, that everyone here will end up under the water’s dirt like their fathers, mothers, grandmothers, and grandfathers before them. Nihilism has bound their shoulders, helping them to relax before an imminent end.
All this is different from the divine definition of actual meaninglessness.
The meaning here is that humans live by God’s laws within the framework He has already outlined. He has sent guidance, references, and clear signs of what could happen if one steps outside that framework. Everything was crystal clear; there’s no reason, from His perspective, not to follow the teachings and avoid confusion.
Yet that clarity itself is perplexing. Punishment alone doesn’t invite belief or adherence; it is merely a consequence of an act, even if previously signaled as a warning.
There’s no direct link here.
There may be some connection in seeing something and believing in its existence, and in believing in something because of the traces it leaves. But even though these two concepts are indeed close in meaning, they are not the same thing.
It’s truly confusing, and most likely, it would take a long face-to-face conversation to process it all.
The reason for the war, unlike the war itself, is clear and simple: a lack of control.
To be aware, while submerged in that drenched chaos, and to have someone shout in your face to look for the shore—that in itself is a terrifying thing that deserves some punishment for those who caused it. Control here lies in having the power, a limited individual freedom, the choice to search for the shore or not. The “not” here is exceptionally intriguing.
For an individual to have freedom of choice necessarily negates the single available choice; there must be at least two options, and one of them must be freely selectable.
Suppose you chose this “not” here.
You chose nihilism—there is no shore, only incomprehensible chaos. So, let’s die then? Hm?.
But death is just another frame; it’s not a possible choice within the original framework, which is life. There may be another form of absurdity after death.
If we look at it from another perspective, choosing “not” doesn’t necessarily mean death. It just means we won’t search for the shore and will accept the drenched chaos as all there is. And what then? We live a short or long life amid soaked absurdity and merely float until we die.
This is precisely where the spark of war was born.
No control from beginning to end, and worse yet, another one is shouting in your face that you must follow the instructions of the one who put you here in the first place to be rewarded after all that ends!
Even if death is another, different frame and there’s a high likelihood it’s the start of an even greater, more confusing, and wetter absurdity, it will still be entered one way or another.
At least choosing to enter on one’s own terms it means having some freedom of decision, some degree of control, a certain power, even if that brings us back to the same starting point of absurdity."
I sat down. Looked the cat in the eyes for a while.
They were genuine.
“My mother is home. You can go and take her” I said.
“You didn’t have a choice!”. “I don’t have a choice either. We’re both in the river.” Said the cat.
She hands me a brown bag filled with green buds. “Good luck, kid.” Then she wiggles her tail and saunters off with that same smile.
She left a wooden stick and an eye behind her.