Liberated Thoughts

— Dedicated to Aphrodite —

Days that join an end to a beginning torment me: for my life did not begin on any fixed date, and it will never end! Who am I? I am every human being who rebels against time and against place — and who is, always, at war with them!

In the harshness of the cold, in the trembling of the fingers and the note of wariness in the bones, I was walking lost in the street, as though I were stepping over the sidewalk, and over the passers-by, and over the buildings... and over time itself... not toward home. Not toward the institute of letters. Not toward my place of work... but toward no-place... and no-end...

And I collided, suddenly, with a lady carrying many parcels, clasping them like a beloved in her arms, accompanied by a child who brushed the colored paper against his cheek, sniffed like a puppy at the smell of the new shoe leather, and scattered cheap smiles into the air.

The lady did not grow angry when the white bags tumbled between her feet and mine. She only thanked me, kindly, after I helped her gather the parcels into her arms, while the shopkeeper stumbled over his own smile at the entrance of his shop. And people slid quietly past us four — the lady, and the child, and the shopkeeper, and I — as though they had wearied of this sight, or grown used to it!

Cheer is carved on the lady's

face. Cheer is carved on the child's face. Cheer is carved on the shopkeeper's face. Cheer is carved on the faces of the passers-by. Whence comes this contentment of theirs? Is it from those parcels — gladdening the one who sells them, and gladdening the one who buys?

I stood nailed to my place... while the stream of beaming faces stared into my shrunken, frightened, bewildered face... and the lips of some of the young men whistled an inviting, insistent, vulgar tune... and my two lips were dead: dried stiff by a brazen, scornful, con-ceited cowardice!

I moved two legs that had been held back from motion by a thought making ready to storm, to thunder, and to smash — in order to create a thought fit to dwell in the body.

Such is my life — I, the rebel human being: in every moment a beginning. And in every moment an end. Beginning... and end... end, and beginning...

And after I managed to resume my crawl along the sidewalk, it occurred to me: to touch some of the passers-by. To pass my hand over their faces. To gaze into their eyes. To press the fingers of their hands. To draw near them, so as to feel the warmth rising from their bodies... perhaps so I might put an end to my fear of them!

No, I am not philosophizing. I do not believe in the idea of a school of thought. Or the principle of a party. Or the opinion of any

particular person. I only feel that I am drowned here... here... in the heart of truth and reality: I see the banana peel on the sidewalk. The cigarette butt. The advertisement on the wall. Happiness in a pair of eyes. Ugliness on a face...

And I hear the wanton laughter. And the mute, stifled screaming. And the invitation on a mouth. And the trite sentences the professor repeats, like a parrot, about Aristotle, and al-Farabi, and the forgeries of pre-Islamic literature, and sociology... Just as I hear other sentences, which the announcer pours into our ears — grave ones, these — about the turmoil of the politics of our East...

And a criminal disquiet pains me in everything I hear, and see, and feel!

In these last few days I tried to cure my fear. I mean: I tried not to hear. And not to see. And not to feel.

I stuffed my handbag with many liras. I entered most of the shops of the capital; there I greeted the salesman, granted the clerk a smile, drew a joke out of the customers, helped ladies choose colors and gifts... then I left them, sheltering within the net of my arms white parcels. And yellow ones. Adorned with shining ribbons.

A month's salary — sucked from my body as blood — I squandered in a few reckless little hours!

Then I lived through the small moments, the hours, of the