“Your name?”
“Carolina Herrera.”
I feel vibrations go through every part of my body like a bomb going off inside me.
“Your name?”
“David Charles Samhoun.”
He leaves the dark room where I can’t see or hear anything aside from the coarse voice asking my name and the noise from his beatings.
I didn’t see the door he went out of, I didn’t see him, and I didn’t hear him lock the door behind him or close it, not calmly or forcefully.
I try to think of what to do, and what not to do. It’s like he took away my will.
What should I do? Why am I here?
I’m going to stay in this position for now, not because I’m in any pain, but because the blood running from my nose down my face is blocking my nostrils.
I’ll wait.
Where are the others? Did he detain Zeezee and Zumurrud and Shwikar in separate rooms? Are they as bad as me?
Maybe they all told him their real names, so he stopped beating them. But, maybe there’s more pain behind another question they can’t answer.
I don’t know. I don’t know.
And me, why not tell him my real name?
My cell phone rings inside my purse. I reach for my purse, take out my phone and read my name.
I’m calling myself? I remember the joke about the druggie who heard someone at the door, so he asked “who is it?” and the person answered, “it’s me.” So the druggie freaked out, “me?!”
Ha. Me.
“What’s your name?”
“Me.”
“What’s mine?”
“You.”
“We’re two different people, then?”
“Yeah, and one’s beating up the other.”
“Why?
“Because I won’t tell you my name.”
“And why is that?”
“Because I’ve forgotten it.”
“Where?”
“Where what?”
“Where did you forget it?”
“In my consciousness.”
“Who said you’re unconscious now?”
“The sequence of previous events has led to it.”
“There is no sequence of events. Events happen, just like that.”
“That doesn’t make any sense. There is a sequence that events must follow.”
“And where does this sequence lead, Ms. Me?”
“It leads here. To you beating me, and me wishing to escape.”
“You want to escape me?”
“Of course! You’re beating me up.”
“Where would you run to?”
“I don’t know. Every time I imagine a place to run to, I find a new question waiting for me there, and more beating. I’m surrounded by beating.”
“So you stay here because you’re used to my beating?”
“What? This is the first time you beat me up.”
“No, I’ve always beaten you up. Have you forgotten that, too?”
“Yeah.”
“No, you haven’t. Every time I beat you, you come up with a new excuse and pretend that it’s the first time I beat you.”
“You mean you always beat me? For no reason? And I come up with excuses to stay?”
“Yup.”
“Correct?”
“Excuse me?”
“Never mind. It’s just something Koko always says.”
“Oh, Koko. I beat her too. But she’s not mine. You’re mine, and they’re mine, and I will keep on beating you until . . .”
[A moment of silence] “Until what? What do you want us to do?”
“Nothing. I want to beat you. Nothing more.”
“But, why?”
“Because I like doing it.”
“That’s a lame excuse. Lamer than the sequence of events thing.”
“Okay, you have a point. It’s an excuse. No one likes to live in darkness and beat people up for sport.”
“Some people do, and they have their reasons to do it. And some people do it because they’re convinced it leads to a solution. And there are those who . . .”
“Are you pro–capital punishment?”
“No.”
“Why not? Wouldn’t you like to see me hanging from a rope?”
“Every time I hear of a hanging or see one in a movie or in real life, my neck hurts. I believe that violence begets violence; it’s not the answer to it. I think that the civil war in Lebanon was like a hanging.”
“Being philosophical, huh?”
“Yeah.”
“I’m quick to use up my options and I like the idea of violence as a form of communication. It’s fast and fundamental, and I don’t like to think quietly. So please, don’t try to go philosophical on me because I’m going to beat you anyway.”
“Thanks for saving me from wasting my time. I do think there’s a similarity between hanging and the Lebanese civil war but I can’t put my finger on the common factor between the two.”
“Fine. Now, tell me, why can’t you remember your name?”
“I don’t know.”
“Think hard.”
“But you hate thinking.”
“But I like answers.”
“Okay, I’ll think.”
. . .
. . .
“Enough thinking, what’s the answer?”
“I think I forgot my name because I don’t want it repeated in a story. If I’m nameless, no one will tell stories about me, as if I’ve never existed.”
“But you do exist, and the evidence for that is that I’m beating you.”
“Do you exist? A faceless coarse voice in a room where my eyes can’t adjust to the darkness, you exit without a door and return without a reason, and ask, and demand answers, and beat me up seeking them, and you don’t even have a reason for asking them.”
“Who said that? I have a face, and it’s a good-looking one, too. Your eyes aren’t adjusting to the darkness because they’re blind. I blinded you before the anesthesia wore off. As for the questions that need answering, I’m only the middle man.”
“I’m not blind, I was able to read my name on my phone.”
“What’s your name?”
“Me.”
“And mine?”
Zumurrud asks me when she’s done reading: “What’s this?”
“That’s the ending to my story.”
She clearly looks confused. “But when did you reach the ending? And, who’s this man? And the dialogue, I like it, but it’s so surreal.”
I reply confidently, “I’m writing the ending first before I start writing the novel.”
She asks, hesitantly this time, “Are you sure of this? Why are you writing a novel to begin with?”
“Just for fun.”
“Sure, but, who’s this man?”
“This man, Zumurrud, represents society, or, Lebanon. This man beats us up whenever he wants, and still, we find him an . . .”
She interrupts me angrily, “Ugh, I get that, but I’m still not convinced. What’s wrong with you? Why won’t you write about what we’re living?
