By Khaled Diab

The night before and the morning after

I hate You. I love You. I resent my dependence on You. I despise my fear of defying You. Yes, yes, yes, is all I can hear myself say. I have struck no from my vocabulary. With every passing moment I find it harder and harder to utter that, in theory, simple two-letter word. You, You, You. Everything revolves around You. You are my North, my East, my South, my West. I am only secondary. For two decades now, I have been fading – losing substance. Subsumed by You, subservient to You. Losing it up above, gaining it round the middle – I am growing to resemble a hairless pear on legs. I am no more than a shadow of my former self; a shadow, no, an extension of… You. You. According to YOU!

Everything comes to an end. The good have a fleeting life expectancy. Entropy demands that heat must eventually degenerate to an even coldness. The bad endure beyond endurance. But the bad too must come to an end. Never simply. Never quickly. Never painlessly. But always a definite eventuality. Watch out! You may taunt me now. You may challenge me to say no. And I will. Not today. But there will come a day. A day when I will stand tall and look You steadfastly in the eye. I won't drop my gaze. Then I will say it. Emphatically, I will say, No. Euphorically, I will say NO. NO! NOO!

I had a long, feverish, sleepless night, last night. Cold sweats washed over me. Hot tidal waves sheathed me with their humid stickiness. In the unlit room, you hung there heavier than the darkness, more embracing than a strait jacket. You weren't there by my side, but that didn't make your presence less real. Does it ever? Your image is stuck in my mind. Wherever I go, You are with me, somehow watching over me: my guardian angel. It doesn't make any difference whether You are there or not. You can still find out. You call it intuition. I suspect… No, I know it's different. I see your eyes following me. Your spies report my every mediocre move which you measure in the blind balance of your lover's(?) law – although, in recent years, You've loosened your hold on me. I suspect You think I've become helpless and impotent. How right you are.

You gave me an ultimatum. You said I had to choose. But You knew, didn't You? You knew I had no real choice – I could not say no. You waited, as you do every time, until I was at my most vulnerable. How did You know I was vulnerable? Because You made me so. Continually telling me how lost I would be without You. All that emotional blackmail. Making me feel bad about not appreciating you for all those wonderful things You've done for me. I know we had some good times but I don't remember them all being so wonderful at the time. But, then, who am I to make such hasty judgements? I mean,

You've managed to recruit all our friends to sing your praises. A chorus of unquestioning support. Don't you think I know that it is all a put-on? They pretend to like you, just as they pretend that everything is OK. They can see through our little song and dance. You say that we have to keep up appearances, that it is dangerous to display our dirty laundry in public (dangerous for whom?). We act out the farce that ours is an equal and voluntary partnership. They can all see through the thinly veiled charade that we are. But they keep silent. They know that we didn’t choose each other, that we just happened to fall into one another's orbit. They know full well what a hopeless wimp I am and what a terrifying tyrant you are. Friends, neighbours, even passers-by, know the real politick, the real deal we have. They're all afraid of you. They have seen or heard what your malice can be like. You can devastate a rival's soul at thirty paces. Those that aren't afraid of You, You try to lure into your hold; You seduce them. Of course, I feel cheated. I feel enraged by your betrayal, by the mockery you make of our sacred vows, our holy bond. But You know I am powerless. I, like the others, am beholden in your bondage. There is only one vow that You will uphold, much as I wish in my heart of hearts that you wouldn't, and that is till death us do part.

Only my death or yours will effect the break I have so longed for. In the throes of my agitated turmoil, I contemplated the hastened eventuality of mine. I contemplated defiance. Waking up in the morning and telling you to go. Savouring the sweet satisfaction of seeing your back fade away. But I knew You would never go. Or perhaps You would have. But how would I live without You? I began to panic. I tried to remember life before You. It all seemed very vague. I tried to focus on my previous lovers. I could vaguely remember I had had three. Their faces were blurred. I began to doubt my memories. I could not remember if they were good or bad. I think they were bad. They also dominated me. But I couldn't remember for certain. I think I'm afraid of change. I'm afraid to step out into the unknown. Better the devil you know… My memories are vanishing. Maybe You are my everything. If You are, then the world may stop moving, the sun may refuse to rise. Perhaps, more plausibly, if You went I would cease to exist, become less than a shadow, less than a memory, unreal. I wake up in a cold sweat. Perhaps I won't. The next morning, I sit across from You. You are pleased, overjoyed. Why? Wasn't it all a foregone conclusion? You flash me a warm smile, You look deep into my eyes, and promise me there will be change, that we are on the verge of paradise. Are we? It all looks deceptively unchanged. The furniture has been moved around a little bit. Now we have the sofa in the kitchen and the washing machine in the living room. But what do I know? I sip my coffee, look over at you and wonder…

Are You real? Are You a metaphor? Or am I? Or are we both?

Written shortly after President Hosni Mubarak won, with an overwhelming majority, a referendum for a fourth term in 1999.

ã2006 K. Diab. Unless otherwise stated, all the content on this website is the copyright of Khaled Diab.