Eid was its usual understated to the point of non-existence self. I spoke to my father who was in a cheerful mood, but couldn’t face speaking to my grandmother which I shall no doubt regret. I did send her a message. My schoolfriends’ whatsapp group, which is normally an annoyance full of stupid forwarded memes was unusually engaging as people sent photos of their children (no more than one photo each, blessed day), looking excited and dressed up in their Eid clothes.
For Eid lunch we went to possibly my favourite restaurant, the superb Maryool where the cauliflower steak was best in class and the kebab bil karaz nearly made me weep with joy.
Today, I sat down and wrote (to my surprise) a full short story. Clearly having immersed myself in misery over the past few days has paid off creatively. Aside from Pity the nation I have been reading a harrowing study of migrant workers in Beirut (Kassamali’s Migrant Worker Lifeworlds of Beirut). Then I turned to podcasts, a two-episode series on the massacres in Indonesia in the 1960s. Then, finally realising what I was doing, I turned instead to In Our Time, an episode on Perspolis.
In any event, today I have written a story based on a single sentence heard in the Indonesian podcast.