Holmes in the Bus in Baghdad

I was reading Sherlock Holmes (A Scandal in Bohemia) in the bus when a desire took a hold of me, the desire of becoming as perfect as he was in observation of details around him, so as I put down the book for a while and started observing the details that surrounded me.

 Thanks God the speakers were off. They look much better off in the sun.

 A heel of a shoe has found its role in this bus.

 At the end of the short story Holmes didn't shake the hands of king of Bohemia although the king had presented his hand. All that Holmes asked for was to guard the photo in his personal belongings, as if he was thinking that it is more safe than to give it to the king. The king, if really was trying to do harm, and was really pathological suspicious would have not accepted that, but as a child, he accepted.

From the beginning I suspected that Holmes didn't like the King of Bohemia from the way he observed his clothings, and I even suspected racism. He described that king with ridicule. That king looked almost nauseating to me with all that bad taste in clothings, and bad manners.

The King of Bohemia was worried that a woman, an English woman we would suppose, will hurt him in the future because they were lovers and she had a picture of him and her together. The king of Bohemia suspected that she might one day blackmail him. Holmes duty was to take that picture off from her. But she finally, in sudden movement, let Holmes took the picture and left him a message praising his cleverness and telling him that she didn't intend to harm the king, but on the contrary she was afraid that that king might try to hurt her reputation one day so she kept that picture with her. That ending is not convincing to me.

I didn't like the king of bohemia, nor holmes, nor the lady who was about to marry.
I liked only this speaker who was saying nothing.

My strange dream about Isis

Lately I read some articles in Arabic journals about terrorism. About what is happening in Syria, Iraq and lately, in France. Yesterday I dreamed as if seeing visually an article. If we were living in the ancient times I would be regarded as a prophet seeing a message from God. It was symbolic although I didn't get all the symbols. Here is the dream:

"It is in an airport, a child in a wheelchair pushed by her mother, approaches in their walking by hazard a slim talk black man who looks like Sotigui Kouyate.

He is so slim and wearing suspenders. The girl doesn't like the suspenders and thought that they look silly so she started chatting with him with ridicule. He answers her with questions: "What if somebody can not wear a belt?", "What if I am diseased and belts can hurt me?" While they continue chatting she manages to take the suspenders from him. They start laughing since his trousers start hanging down. He tells her that his disease makes him loose weight even if he eats good.  

The girl continues her ridicule and she finally answers his questions by: "How wise you are, you know much things, you know all things about medicine, religion, and the soul."

He answers as calm as he seems always be: "Regarding medicine, I asked my doctor what is wrong with me so that I can understand myself. Regarding religion I claim no knowledge, nor regarding the soul."

At that point the girl's mother says: "That's what I prefer." She is smiling when she puts the wheelchair in that corner to go for a thing to check, like when we go to check the boardings of airplanes. The African black slim tall man stands about 2 meters from the girl in the wheelchair who still has his suspenders with her. She moves her wheelchair to approach him and without a word, but with a smile, she gives him his suspenders. He kneels down to look her good in the eyes and says: "What the world is waiting to make you his Goddess Isis?"

The dream ends with seeing few lines written in Arabic, and also hearing somebody reading them. The verses say something like:

What the world is waiting?

We men had spoiled this world

We made women become prostitutes

When will be go back to that time where women reign?

That how I remember my dream. I am sure I forgot some details but that what sticks in my mind and thought that you like to hear about. 

The Goal of Life

One of my colleagues told me once: "Sami, excuse my remark, but you don't know what you want." I didn't like to discuss that with him, but the bottom line is I think that nobody knows what s/he wants form life. 

I took the bus today who was there waiting for me? now you already know, I hope. A Virginia Woolf of a kind. And we started chatting. 

VW: So where are you going today?

S: To the University to see whether I can change my place of working.

VW: Soooo, that meeaanzzz, you know where you are going to?

S: welllll, ... - I looked in her eyes and saw that mixture of cleverness and ridicule so I took a deep breath and opened my book and read:

"Lazy and indifferent, shaking space easily from his wings, knowing his way, the heron passes over the church beneath the sky. White and distant, absorbed in itself, endlessly the sky - then VW interrupts suddenly:

VW: So you can follow my ideas?

S:... -I search in her eyes for ridicule and before I was able to find any I opened my mouth and started rambling- wellll, yeah, you like herons, they kind of having long necks, and long beak. They are kind of slim and feather-light. They seem nauseated. Oh sorry didn't mean.. didn't mean that... that you like nausea, but anorexic.. are you??

VW: No, at all. 

S: You don't like heaviness. And you are tortured by not finding a goal. This heron knows his way and you like that, knowing once way. You don't feel like, consciousness had known its way. Once conscious, you're lost. Animals are better. Objects are the best. You like perception. You contemplate. YOU SEEM TO ME A BUDHI.....

The bus stopped and the people were looking at me. The driver said: "You are talking to your self, you are frightening people!"

While the bus regains its path, to the nowhere, VW giggled like a prostitute. 

   

Lost with Woolf

I took the bus going back home and she was sitting there waiting for me. Who else but Virginia Woolf?

She started telling me about that Society she and her friends had held. They were 6 or 7 of young women who thought that the objects of life are to produce good people and good books. Good people are produced by women, and good books are produced by men. Since it is up to women to start this circle of production, those young women thought that they must answer the question of whether men are producing good books or not, before going ahead and produce more men.

They went to libraries, galleries, universities, army, and courts so that to see whether men are producing good books. Actually not only good books, but good things. They wanted to answer questions like what is honor? what is chastity?

It was the job of Castalia to search for the meaning of chastity when she fell in love with that university professor who sent her back to her Society pregnant.

The WW-1 started. Castalia sobbed.
The WW-1 ended. Castalia and the narrator continued their discussion. I didn't get the final goal of the short story. There may be no "final" "goal", but this was meant to let you pose questions on yourself.

I sometimes have to admit, that I am lost too.