ANARCHISTALES

The joint is making its second round.

It is left on the ashtray, its four butts pried apart so they can cool down. Half-hearted laughs explode and scatter like fireworks before they can even hit the ceiling. Aryanisa shifts her posture, Behiç is picking out seeds, Mayıs plays with the lace trim of her headscarf, and Ural sits cross-legged, trying to figure out how to loop the end of his sentence back to its beginning. I smile with effort, thinking of the imprint my dry, bony ass will leave on the carpet.

“Let’s listen to some music,” Aryanisa says.

A long silence, lasting about five minutes, settles in.

“Word,” Behiç says. “I’m putting on Paco De Lucía. Any objections?”

If there is an objection, it won’t be voiced for at least ten minutes. The flamenco will eventually be pierced, and Mayıs will probably say she wants to listen to Devendra Banhart. No one is surprised by the rising sound of the trumpet yet. Not even Behiç.

“I…” Ural starts, then pauses. “Sometimes I just don’t know, and you push me too hard.”

“Then don’t defend what you don’t know,” I reply.

Mayis and Behiç turn their bloodshot eyes toward the conversation.

“Man, I trust in God. Why don’t you get that?”

“I’m asking because you claim to know, man! If you can’t explain it, that’s your problem, not mine. I’m not mad at you for that.”

“You’re making me suffer, man. I want to explain it to you. I want you to be a Muslim too.”

“Whoa, hold your horses, big guy! Where is this coming from?”

“Why, man? Is it a bad thing?”

“Look, kiddo, I have no issue with your faith. If you don’t want me to, I won’t ask any more questions. You’re my friend; I can’t bear to see you suffer. But you’ve got to understand me too! I’m not saying He doesn’t exist, nor am I saying holy books write bad things. I’m saying I will find my own way, which is why I don’t care about any decree ripping through the sky.”

“Why are you acting like a missionary anyway?” says Aryanisa, looking seemingly detached.

“What happened to Paco?” Mayıs asks.

“Nothing, I switched to Ibrahim Maalouf. If it bothers you, I can turn it off,” Behiç says, his slender fingers reaching for the laptop.

“You won’t find anyone more ‘democratic’ than urban socialists,” Aryanisa remarks. “They’ll even nod along to fascists just to avoid being disrespectful.”

Behiç is visibly annoyed but tries not to show it.

“Pass it,” Ural says. “Whose turn is it?”

“It’s Ziya,” Mayıs says, pointing at my phone.

“Why the hell is this guy calling me?” I ask, looking around the living room. Only Behiç shrugs. Everyone else is indifferent. Ziya is not a close friend of mine, nor a distant one, not even a buddy… Ziya is just someone who exists in my contacts. A face in the crowd when we occasionally cross paths or have tea. The kind of guy to whom I reply “What’s up, man?” when he says “Hello Chao.” A guy I know is paranoid, someone I couldn’t help even if I wanted to.

“What’s up, man!”

“What are you doing, Chao?”

“Nothing. You?”

“I’m doing really bad.”

“Did you take your meds?”

“I did.”

“Try to get some sleep.”

“I’m going to kill myself.”

“Good idea. Think you can pull it off?”

“Why do you ask?”

“Usually people screw it up, that’s why… How are you planning to do it?”

“I’m going to hang myself.”

“If you mess up, you’re in deep shit.”

“Why would I mess up, man? How does everyone else manage?”

“You only hear about the ones who succeed, man. They’re the ones who make the news. If you keep the rope too long, your head might rip off. If you keep it too short, you’ll just start suffocating, your survival reflexes will kick in, and while you’re trying to save yourself, you’ll either suffer immensely or end up as a paralyzed vegetable with spinal damage because your brain went without oxygen while you were thrashing around.”

“Should I use a gun then?”

“Are you going to press it to your temple or put it in your mouth?”

“I hasn’t decided yet.”

“If you don’t get the angle right on your temple, you’ll just blow your eyeballs out of their sockets and survive. If you put it in your mouth or under your chin and miss, you’ll lose your entire face. You’ll be horribly disfigured.”

“Pills?”

“Your average junkie pops ten or fifteen of the ones you’re taking just to get a buzz. Very few actually die.”

“What the fuck should I do then, man? Why are you so fucking pessimistic!”

“Jump onto concrete from at least forty meters up. Without a jacket or anything.”

“Our apartment is on the third floor?”

“Nine, ten meters… At most, you’ll break a few bones and end up bedridden.”

“You’re a piece of shit. I’m going to sleep.”

“Good night.”

“You too…”

The joint makes its way from Aryanisa to me. I plant one last kiss on it. Ibrahim Maalouf, through his trumpet, weeps for Beirut.