My name is Tarik.
Tomorrow…
I write from another room in another town.
Tomorrow, I will have moose coloured hair.
I will be thirty three years old and unmusical.
Boo Boo? What are you doing now?
"I'm humming," I imagine her saying.
I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. Like a fool, I gazed too long into the mind of evil.
Autumn days drag so slowly by. Which is why God invented the 50cc Honda step-through motorcycle.
I walk on tiptoes through the house to save the heels of my jeans from fraying. In one room, Boo Boo is switching channels like it's a game. In another, Mum is rearranging paintings. I stop at the door. Dad is late. Mum looks at me as if I should know where things are meant to go. I tiptoe on towards the kitchen.
In the fridge is an impressive array of sausage, cheese, vegetables and bottles of items in varying degrees of suspended animation.
Nothing has an end, except for life.
My Dad is German, God bless him. If not punk exactly, my guess is he brought with him some decidedly un-Arabic element to our country. Nevertheless, he converted to Islam, I suppose because he loved my mother. To convert for love is a good thing.
Dad is a teacher. He teaches mathematics at the university.
His hair is not curly like mine but still dark. He dresses like a European. And like me, he is taller than most people.
With the encouragement of my parents, I can now speak so many languages. Next stop is Turkish.
I wish I could speak every different language in the entire world.
It is said, at my age, I should be rebelling.
Maybe I am backward.
The cat I befriended today was a very dark gray without any bit of white.
Last night I dreamt I married Taamet.
Above our slow embroidered procession, so many stoneheads gawked from their windows, so to distract the solemn, the beautiful, the wed. As if Taamet might admire her green. Her red and white. Herself.
From the top of the stair, I watched her climb to the upper room, to the kid’s throat waiting to be cut, to the blood spurting towards the bowl (also waiting) and given me to drink, then I to her, and tastes like…
Taamet had never seen a pencil. When she touched it, it rolled off the table and broke. Taamet picked it up and examined its brokeness. I, in a futuristic sort of way, lay dead in my chair. “Look in the drawer for a silver locket. See what is inside, a long time hidden in the tooth of the saint,” I said.
It was indeed another craft, double crossed, some precious metal, small, too old or yet to be, in six tiny squares.
Taamet busies herself finding shirts in the dark. She curses herself so many times.
I used to be scared of girls. But now I realise they are scared of me too. I got talking to Taamet yesterday, when I should have been doing something else. We sat down at the fountain. We really were aliens! Two people from two different planets. Taamet is no great beauty but evenso she has something indescribable, something better than beauty.
What am I talking about? There is nothing better than beauty.
More lately, I have realised that everyone is exactly the same. Which explains why we’re all so scared of each other. We seem different, have different stories, histories – we live in different bodies, maybe a different sex, or in a different country with different customs, language – we have different priorities, different strengths and weaknesses… I suppose that is what God wants. Manifoldness (if that's a word).
I will marry Amle. My parents are very strict.
But girls require boys to do something. To be exciting.
And I suppose an interrupted backwards story will always lack a beginning. I will try my best to right that particular wrong.
I am a good muslim. I befriend stray cats. Every day, I briefly admire my curly black hair in the mirror. I am kind to my mother even though we have long stopped cuddling. I say my prayers. I honour my father even if he abhors rap music. I love my sister who is somehow still alive. I bust into websites based in exotic locations all round the world. I play the lute for what I suppose to be a ridiculous amount of time. Everything is perfect.
As the proud new owner of this website, I am persuaded to present a more enlightened and consistant fifteen year old perspective as opposed to the seemingly random or unwise views posted so far. I begin with a short description of my sister.
My sister Boo Boo (she has no real name) is a saint. She has already tried to kill herself three times. The first time, she put a pen in her ear. We took her up to the hospital. There was a lot of blood and screaming. Boo Boo was three at the time. Not long after, she interfered with a jug of boiling water which my father was trying to pour into a teapot. My father was mortified. Ill never forget the look on his face, nor the size of my sister's blisters, and her bravery. That was when I first understood her potential.
About a year later, Boo Boo decided to stop breathing. I myself filmed and narrated this global-first event on my phone. "Thirty one, thirty two, thirty three… The indominitable Boo Boo, on track to be a true potato. One minute and two seconds! A world record!" In the end, her cheeks did, in fact, look like two potatoes.
My sister is now six. I am fifteen, as I have already intimated.
I have seen a potato once, at my uncle Ahmed's house, but did not eat it. I imagine it tastes like octopus, only uglier.
I should explain. My sister's name is Boo Boo. I came across this site by mistake. I live with my parents and my sister in a small house on the outskirts of Tunis (why am I telling you this?) I don't usually hack random packages which don't offend nobody. But I couldn't help myself. The problem is, now I'm in control. What should I do? Rap in iambic pentameter?
