Solidtaire Studio

at night

late at night, after tourists have gone home, soho again regains its solumn beauty, bestowing both order and grace upon the space with its tightly knitted and neatly constructed brownstones. the streets are clearer, except perhaps some lovers who prefer to linger on.

and the access to the basement would fling open, people would pop out of them, and light would leak out of the underground.  strong and silent men produce garbage from beneath, and unload supplies for tomorrow.  these jarring doors, they always scare me a little.  they feel like swamps.  these men, in their brute power and loneliness, feel like crocodiles. 

i think, right now, soho feels like a crocodile colony. 

the air is rancid.  does crocodile breath smell like this? 

and the wall of soho's brownstones, they'd feel a little curved at night, as if they were going to bend out of shape under the influence of some spell. 

not far, a woman plays hula hoops to amuse herself.  other people look on with gazes that are either mesmerized or indifferent, or both. 

i think of her as a little mermaid on an island of crocodiles.

keys

a palestinian writer of children's books, who had studied in beirut in her youth and is currently living in amman, describes beirut as a charismatic city whose pull emanates from its soul. 

after the bombing started, when she finally connected with her friend, nabeeha mheidly, an editor at a publishing house, she learned that nabeeha's entire family is safe, yet her apartment and her office have been blown up by the missiles.

nabeeha said, now, the only memories i have of the apartment are my keys. 

the writer's family left lifta in 1948 and never returned.  their house, and everything inside,  had been taken by the incoming jewish settlers.  the writer's 80-year-old mother still has the key to their house,  and vivid memories the objects that filled up the inside:  tablecloth with lace, photo albums, music records, and so on. 

many palestinians still have the keys to their old houses, they hold on to them as evidence of a lost past.  they have keys to houses that no longer exist.