Letters from NYC

My Subconscious - A Mysterious Thing

I had a horrible nightmare that lasted practically all night long; its effect lingering still this morning. Each time I awoke, I'd bolt upright in my bed about to scream, sweaty, my heart pounding wildly while still wrestling against imaginary captors that were stopping me from saving my son. Once I was sufficiently calm and aware of my surroundings it took me 45 min or so before I'd go back to sleep. Each time the dreaming continued, only to have the same end result.

The dream was a melding of a story by Orianna Fallaci, I read a few years ago, and a ritual killing I witnessed as a child while visiting Morroco. The brutal scene from when I was 8 years old, comes back to haunt me from time to time. In the extended entry I’ve posted the excerpt from Fallaci’s book that haunts me subconsciously and which I woke up recalling this morning. It pretty much sums up my nightmare with the exception that my son was the little boy at the end of the story. I suggest only those with a strong spirit click through and read on.

"I’ll tell you about the twelve young impure men I saw executed at Dacca at the end of the Bangladesh war. They executed them on the field of Dacca stadium, with bayonet blows to the torso or abdomen, in the presence of twenty thousand faithful who applauded in the name of God from the bleachers. They thundered "Allah akbar, Allah akbar." Yes, I know: the ancient Romans, those ancient Romans of whom my culture is so proud, entertained themselves in the Coliseum by watching the deaths of Christians fed to the lions. I know, I know: in every country of Europe the Christians, those Christians whose contribution to the History of Thought I recognize despite my atheism, entertained themselves by watching the burning of heretics. But a lot of time has passed since then, we have become a little more civilized, and even the sons of Allah ought to have figured out by now that certain things are just not done. After the twelve impure young men, they killed a little boy who had thrown himself at the executioners to save his brother who had been condemned to death. They smashed his head with their combat boots. And if you don’t believe it, well, reread my report or the reports of the French and German journalists who, horrified as I was, were there with me. Or better: look at the photographs that one of them took. Anyway this isn’t even what I want to underline. It’s that, at the conclusion of the slaughter, the twenty thousand faithful (many of whom were women) left the bleachers and went down on the field. Not as a disorganized mob, no. In an orderly manner, with solemnity. They slowly formed a line and, again in the name of God, walked over the cadavers. All the while thundering Allah–akbar, Allah–akbar. They destroyed them like the Twin Towers of New York. They reduced them to a bleeding carpet of smashed bones."

~ from the book “The Rage and Pride”