Hardwood Tap Dancer
At the oak door
Their young golden retriever—
Who chewed through the metal
Water pipe and flooded their rental
Townhouse
Totally—
That infamous hound, now most
Head wagging the air to tailed excess,
Greets me like his long-lost buddy
In a bounding tap dance of ‘paws’
Clack, clack, Clacking
Across their shiny hardwood floor
To a sliding dognail-scratched stop,
Frenzied movement and pointed-pup
Cold wet nosing;
With joy, he’s the wonder
Jumper
Thumper
Prancer
Dancer
Of
Dog
Here
Ness.
1st pub. in The Greensilk Journal
--
Indy Pacer Racing Down the Freeway
Taking it easy, zooming down 101,
California-coasting on a 3-dog night—
Suddenly screeching brakes--red metal tails;
Me, muttering doggish words,
I jam my stop pedal, scanning
Sluggish crawls of tired cars ahead,
Doing under 10 in the fast lane;
Where's the eye-goggled wreck?
Lo and below! way up ahead,
It’s a small mongrel, running,
Only a little blurred brush of fur
Paws fast down dim-lit pavement
In front of a Honda Civic lady;
Howling down, outrunning the moonlight
The rest of us, 'paused' gas-guzzlers hanker
Down until a Ford trucker swerves
Off the un-freeway, jumps out,
Makes a mad grab for the sprinting pooch,
But the small canine switches lanes,
Into the doggy good night, an Indy Pacer,
Ahead of our growls on this paved terrain
--One lone barking whelp, night's terrier,
Howling down, outrunning the moon
And all of us 'paused' smoking cars.
1st pub. in The Write Room poetry magazine,
and in previous pub. poetry book,
selah river
(based on actual happening)
--
The Canine Trail Memorial
Puppy pulling on his collared leash,
In the verdant high rolling hills of San Ramon,
We wind along a lariat of blacktop,
Two 2-legs and their best friend, at a dogtrot,
This weaving trail sequestered
In the intertwining valleys,
Resorts and multi-million homes,
Below green cattle-grazing heights.
Yes, we fast-pace this pedigreed path
Through lush grass near sunset,
Sol's corona glow lowing in the west.
At a cross-path, we stop, hug and brush
Our Black Lab pup,
"Atta boy, ;Scout.”
Next to us rises up a short telephone-pole
Banded with 33 canine collars in rainbow
Colors and dangling metal ornaments.
A modern totem, it's a pooch memorial
To beloved deceased barkers who led
And sniffed this trail, their caring givers
Out for sunset dog-pulled hurried strolls.
But as we ascend from that canine shrine
Headed back In the hilly shaded dusk,
I, in a muttering "tailing" mood,
Lean over to my wife and whisper low,
While giving Scout a hug, "Doggone it."
1st pub. in vox poetica
and the pub. poetry book,
selah river
In the Light,
Daniel Wilcox
Showing posts with label dog. Show all posts
Showing posts with label dog. Show all posts
Tuesday, November 4, 2025
Thursday, January 18, 2018
Widening Our Circle of Concern: Vegetarianism
"Pigs by nature are every bit as loving, sensitive, and full of personality as the animals we call "family."
"Pigs dream, recognize their names, and are gregarious and affectionate being who form loyal bonds with each other and other species including humans."
--
If so, why do millions of American citizens sit down to fancy feasts of ham, pork, sausage, and bacon, especially at Thanksgiving and other holy days?
Sometimes these pork-barrel* times include their deeply loved pet dogs in attendance, waiting impatiently for any pig scraps to gobble up.
("Chester Collins Maxey in the National Municipal Review...
claimed that the phrase originated in a pre-Civil War practice of giving slaves a barrel of salt pork as a reward and requiring them to compete among themselves to get their share of the handout.")
from wikepedia
YET, "the curious and insightful pig is the smartest domestic animal in the world, with intelligence beyond that of a 3-year-old human child."
"In their natural setting, pigs spend hours playing, mother pigs sing to their piglets while nursing, and groups of pigs enjoy lying close together in the sun."
--from vegetarian poster
Consider these startling facts from scientists:
from "Pigheaded: How Smart are Swine?"
By Andy Wright
"Candace Croney is an Associate Professor of Animal Sciences at Purdue University and once taught pigs to play video games...
she participated in a study that set pigs to a task that previously only Rhesus monkeys and chimpanzees had been asked to perform."
"The pigs were provided with specially made joysticks that they could control with their mouths or snouts and then tasked with the job of moving a cursor around on the screen to make contact with different target walls that would shrink and move away."
"Croney did not think the pigs would be able to do it. But they could..."they’re really very fast learners... learn novel things quite quickly and quite well.”
"She soon set her pigs to other tasks...They were given odor quizzes, correctly picking out, say, spearmint, from an array of other smells that included mint and peppermint."
"Some studies have shown that scent is so important to a pig that if you cover up a part of a pigs’ cheek, they have trouble recognizing each other because that is where they emit a certain pheromone."
"Croney says the pigs were extremely clean, that they housebroke themselves and that at the end of a play session they put their own toys away in a big tub."
"Pigs are social, they remember locations well, they remember negative and positive experiences, can tell the difference between individual pigs and humans, recognize themselves in mirrors and learn from other pigs," says Dunipace.
"Kristina Horback, an ethologist (a person who observes animals in their natural habitat): “The social structure of pigs is just like elephants, they have the increased prefrontal cortex like primates and humans because they eat meat and they have the need to hunt and forage."
from "Pigheaded: How Smart are Swine?"
By Andy Wright
READ the whole insightful article at Modern Farmer:
https://modernfarmer.com/2014/03/pigheaded-smart-swine/
--
Of course, for those of us who are moving toward vegetarianism, who have long ago quit pork and beef, but who still eat salmon, cod, and shrimp-- and sometimes fowl food at family meals to be courteous--for us in transition toward non-face food, there is this problem:
"Seth Dunipace, a veterinarian and post-doctoral fellow at University of Pennslyvania...thinks we should be asking ourselves why we care how smart a pig is. “I don’t think that’s necessarily fair because they’re using intelligence as a stand-in for suffering."
“And its this kind of thought that allows us to eat fish, and fish suffocate to death or bleed out over a course of thirty minutes, but a cow or pig must be rendered instantaneously insensible at slaughter. It’s a double standard."
"And fish do feel pain, fish do have memory. But we just don’t think of them as intelligent. And intelligence, I don’t think, should factor in to how greatly an animal can suffer.”
Hmm...we need to work toward a world of a widening circle of deep ethical concern, but keep in mind that we are all on this life voyage at different places.
Hopefully, we will live deeper and deeper into ethical truths,
Daniel Wilcox
Wednesday, December 16, 2015
"Fox digged out of his Burrows" and other C.Q.H.;-) Fractured As Usual
A city Quaker from an Evangelical Friends church was talking with a Quaker from a Friends meeting in the country. "You are in violation of our Faith and Practice!"
"On the contrary, dear Friend, maybe it would be good if you re-read the words of the son of man. It's in Luke 12:14, "But he said to him, 'Man, who appointed me a judge or arbitrator over you? Beware, and be on your guard against every form of creed;
for not even when one has an abundance does his life consist of his propositions.'”
"What?! I don't remember Jesus saying anything like that in Matthew." The Evangelical grabbed up his Bible and began leafing through the pages.
"Look it up, City Friend. You may think we liberals are country heretics, a bunch of Hicks, but we seek the Light." Then the Friendly farmer walked away smiling.
--
At the Underground Railroad history museum, the guide, a descendant of Levi Coffin, held up a wooden bowl and spoke to a junior high group of teenagers, “This is the very bowl that Levi Coffin’s wife used to feed runaway slaves hidden in a secret compartment in their house.”
Several students, murmured, “Wow,” a few looked bored, and someone loudly whispered, “If only I had my cell phone! I wish--”
“To uh-bowl-ish slavery with that very dish!” interrupted a bright kid in the back.
Some of the teens broke into laughter, and so did the guide.
--
Do you know why the Quaker sailors on Nantucket Island could get their ships cleaned up fast?
They had plenty of mussels.
--
One Quaker student to another:
“Consider how many women among Friends worked for women’s rights based on spiritual truth. For instance, do you remember reading about Susan B. ‘At-the-knee’?" asked the girl in a North Face hiking vest, smiling.
"Sure," said the petite girl next to her, missing the friendly pun.
"She must have kneeled to pray all the time," the North Face girl added, snickering. “Furthermore, think how far we women have progressed since. Why we even have a ‘Hillary’ who is seeking the ‘ever-most’ peak of her career, trying to set a new ‘precedent.’”
“Wait a minute, Hilary’s not a Quaker; she’s a Methodist!”
“Ah, there is madness in my method-dist thee not see;-)?” and the first girl broke out laughing.
--
Did you see the dog kennel in Quakertown, Pennsylvania? The large sign outside proclaims, “There is that of dog in everyone.”
--
"If you don't listen to or play gangsta rap or hip hop, what music do you Friends listen to, then?' asked the skinny teen, tapping time to his I-Pod."
The student from Friends School in North Carolina said, “Oh, Quake and Roll, Quaky Tonk, Quakeabilly, Quakem and Blues, Rapt.”
"Stupid! But I get yer lame jokes, even 'rapt' for 'rap,' except what does 'rapt' have to do with Quakers?
"You need to read The Journal of George Fox or John Woolman and listen to the spiritual songs of Jon Watts! We're talking spiritual rapture, man. Like the dictionary says, 'transported by spiritual feeling'."
--
But sometimes word-play humor in history became mean-spirited. There was a long-titled book ridiculing Quakers by punning their leaders’ names, George Fox and Edward Burroughs.
George Fox digged out of his Burrowes… published in 1676 by Roger Williams
“The old Fox thought it best to run for it, and leave the work to his…” page 5
Burroughs had already died in prison at the age of 29 in 1663. He had been jailed for holding a Quaker meeting. Such religious events were banned by the British government in 1662.
Then the Quakers responded with this long-titled book against Roger Williams:
“A New-England-fire-brand quenched being something in answer unto a lying, slanderous book, entituled, George Fox digged out of his burrows, &c. printed at Boston in the year 1676, of one Roger Williams of Providence in New-England ... : of a dispute upon XIV, of his proposals held and debated betwixt him, the said Roger Williams, on the one part, and John Stubs, William Edmundson, and John Burnyeat on the other at Providence and Newport in Rode-Island, in the year 1672 where his proposals are turn'd upon his own head, and there and here he was and is sufficiently confuted : in two parts : as also, something in answer to R.W.'s Appendix, &c. with a post-script confuting his blasphemous assertions ... : also, the letters of W. Coddington of Rode-Island, and R. Scot of Providence in New-England concerning R.W. and lastly, some testimonies of ancient & modern authors concerning the light, Scriptures, rule & the soul of men / by George Fox and John Burnyeat. [London: s.n.] 1678.”
http://quod.lib.umich.edu/e/eebo/A40216.0001.001/1:4?rgn=div1;view=toc
--
In the 'Lightening' Flash of Punness,
Daniel Wilcox
Wednesday, December 2, 2015
Waking Up at the Funeral
a true event that happened almost 20 years ago--
Waking Up at the Funeral
Her face white-puffed, plastic
Rouged and lipped carmine,
Couched in the satin pillow;
Why am I in sorrow staring down
At this female corpse all dressed out?
I don’t know this thing!
The shock richters all the hell deep
To my marrow and mien, way down;
This is a fake mannequined second
Not my dear loved aunt in her final end.
I wake up at this funeral!
My deepened sorrow lightens--not her!
Yet I force myself to routed tradition
And stare down in fake meditation--
But where’s her so bony, scrawny face
Wrinkled to prune and those 50ish glasses?
I don't know this corpse!
Stray mutts played in her messy bathtub,
(The same size as this metal coffin);
Their residue reeking her house
While she placeed pet ads in the news
Making spending money on stray dogs.
Where have her shenanigans gone?
I don’t know this cadaver!
Even if this rigid painted thing had been
Modeled close to her formal portrait--
That hangs above like a small billboard
For the traffic of the bereaved--
I know this would not be her
Lying still and so stiffly proper;
I wake up at this funeral!
I remember her reading her Bible,
While 2 trained apes in her smelly room,
Gallivanted around in Huggies,
Bringing iced Cokes from the frig
To her skinny, bed-ridden self.
I don’t know this corpse!
Last week, she died of emphysema.
The certain pruning cuts us deep
To the ‘morrow,’ we who still remain,
But I do know, really, that my dear aunt
Is not here in this still, prim cadaver;
We wake up at this funeral!
I sigh in spiritual relief,
Though in sorrow, and walk
Buoyantly away--
Thank the Light! We awake!
by Daniel Wilcox
First published in Lunarosity;
republished by Diminuendo Press, Texas,
and then collected in 3rd book of published
poetry, selah river
I wrote this back when I thought liberal Christianity was true, and had--despite severe rational doubts--hope that death isn't the end of a human being.
Plus, beyond all belief or disbelief, I did experience, suddenly, as I stared into that coffin, the shocking awareness that the dead corpse wasn't my dear aunt. Not at all, not even if the mortuary hadn't disfigured her actual features.
I now have only a faint hope that human life continues after brain death. My father died this year. I wish to God, he is alive right now, but modern science has mostly disproven such a view.
However, none of that takes away from the fact that artificially made-up corpses and most funerals have nothing to do with the real alive loved one we knew.
When I die, I hope those in charge will follow the pattern of service explained in the novel Speaker for the Dead by Orson Scott Card.
Even if Charles Hartshorne and so many other philosophers are correct--no, we aren't conscious after death, such a fact of sorrow doesn't change the truth
that
right NOW I am alive and can make a difference for the impoverished, the refugees, the persecuted, the abused, the hurting...
Let's live in the Light,
Let's light one candle each!
Daniel Wilcox
Waking Up at the Funeral
Her face white-puffed, plastic
Rouged and lipped carmine,
Couched in the satin pillow;
Why am I in sorrow staring down
At this female corpse all dressed out?
I don’t know this thing!
The shock richters all the hell deep
To my marrow and mien, way down;
This is a fake mannequined second
Not my dear loved aunt in her final end.
I wake up at this funeral!
My deepened sorrow lightens--not her!
Yet I force myself to routed tradition
And stare down in fake meditation--
But where’s her so bony, scrawny face
Wrinkled to prune and those 50ish glasses?
I don't know this corpse!
Stray mutts played in her messy bathtub,
(The same size as this metal coffin);
Their residue reeking her house
While she placeed pet ads in the news
Making spending money on stray dogs.
Where have her shenanigans gone?
I don’t know this cadaver!
Even if this rigid painted thing had been
Modeled close to her formal portrait--
That hangs above like a small billboard
For the traffic of the bereaved--
I know this would not be her
Lying still and so stiffly proper;
I wake up at this funeral!
I remember her reading her Bible,
While 2 trained apes in her smelly room,
Gallivanted around in Huggies,
Bringing iced Cokes from the frig
To her skinny, bed-ridden self.
I don’t know this corpse!
Last week, she died of emphysema.
The certain pruning cuts us deep
To the ‘morrow,’ we who still remain,
But I do know, really, that my dear aunt
Is not here in this still, prim cadaver;
We wake up at this funeral!
I sigh in spiritual relief,
Though in sorrow, and walk
Buoyantly away--
Thank the Light! We awake!
by Daniel Wilcox
First published in Lunarosity;
republished by Diminuendo Press, Texas,
and then collected in 3rd book of published
poetry, selah river
I wrote this back when I thought liberal Christianity was true, and had--despite severe rational doubts--hope that death isn't the end of a human being.
Plus, beyond all belief or disbelief, I did experience, suddenly, as I stared into that coffin, the shocking awareness that the dead corpse wasn't my dear aunt. Not at all, not even if the mortuary hadn't disfigured her actual features.
I now have only a faint hope that human life continues after brain death. My father died this year. I wish to God, he is alive right now, but modern science has mostly disproven such a view.
However, none of that takes away from the fact that artificially made-up corpses and most funerals have nothing to do with the real alive loved one we knew.
When I die, I hope those in charge will follow the pattern of service explained in the novel Speaker for the Dead by Orson Scott Card.
Even if Charles Hartshorne and so many other philosophers are correct--no, we aren't conscious after death, such a fact of sorrow doesn't change the truth
that
right NOW I am alive and can make a difference for the impoverished, the refugees, the persecuted, the abused, the hurting...
Let's live in the Light,
Let's light one candle each!
Daniel Wilcox
Thursday, September 3, 2015
Chap#1: AN EYE FOR THE BEHEADING
The beginning draft of the start of one of my new novels--
Dedication:
To the People of Palestine and Israel--
that they may share in peace
An Eye for the Beheading
By Daniel Wilcox
Historical Prologue
Give me at once the head of John the Baptist on a platter.”…Immediately the king sent an executioner with orders to bring John's head. He went and beheaded him in the prison.
Mark 6:25b, 27 New Testament of Bible
Beheading enemies is a very ancient custom. The Hebrew Bible describes David cutting off the head of Goliath and carrying it to Saul. It also mentions that the Philistines cut off the head of Saul.
1 Samuel 17:51, 1 Samuel 31:9-10
And pursued Midian, and brought the heads of Oreb and Zeeb to Gideon on the other side Jordan.
Judges 7:25
--
Led away from the presence of [Caesar] Nero…[the Apostle] Paul was beheaded on the Ostesian road.
The Acts of the Holy Apostles Peter and Paul
--
When you encounter the unbelievers on the battlefield, strike off their heads.
Holy Quran, Sura 47
“Your Lord inspired the angels with the message: ‘I will terrorize the unbelievers. Therefore smite them on their necks and every joint and incapacitate them. Strike off their heads and cut off each of their fingers and toes.”
Qur’an 8:12
--
Behead: to cut off the head: decapitate
Webster’s 9th New Collegiate Dictionary
Heads up: used as a warning to look out for danger…
Merriam-Webster Dictionary
An eye for an eye: “…eye for eye, tooth for tooth. Just as he inflicted an injury upon a person, so shall it be inflicted upon him.” Leviticus 24:19-21
Violate/Violence: late 13c., "physical force used to inflict injury or damage," from Anglo-French and Old French violence, from Latin violentia "vehemence, impetuosity," from violentus "vehement, forcible," probably related to violare
Online Etymological Dictionary
--
Chapter 1: Sea-Dog
Pacific Ocean off the coast of Baja Mexico, June, 2017
Smoking debris filled the horizon as the smudged sun set on another aeronautical disaster. Pawing through swirling water and small waves, a Labrador retriever didn't know anything of plane dynamics or Islamic terrorism, only that it was very thirsty and hungry. And Few-Leg who loved it was missing.
Momentarily, the dog raised its head and barked roughly, but got salty water in its jowls and lapped--odd tasting. Barked. And paddled on. No sounds and no smells, except acrid ones.
The yellow retriever swam around a large cabin section, past more burning objects, past broken flight chairs, discolored suitcases, and charred bodies, but didn't find his owner. He paddled and paddled in amongst the hundreds of yards of abandoned things. Finally, tiring, the dog spotted a large chunk of meshed baggage that floated up ahead, swaying on the waves.
He swam toward the bunched plateau and on his 3rd try succeeded in climbing out of the oily water up on to it. The large dog’s nose sensed eatables and, hurriedly, he chewed through black webbing and a synthetic cover, until he got a plastic packet in its teeth, bit through that, and ate dried salmon, scarfing up delicious morsels.
Then the retriever lay down by the empty packet, put his jowls onto his fore-paws and slept. In the night it rained and rained. He woke in the heavy shower, and lapped shallow water which had accumulated in broken food containers and dips in the baggage.
Suddenly, the dog spotted movement over to the right on a large odd-shaped orange float. As yet no scent had come to him of anything living, but now a wet-man smell filled his nostrils, a little like his owner’s when they played in the surf at home in Maryland. But this wasn't his owner’s smell.
Getting up, the retriever growled and then barked. Repeatedly. And paced back and forth, with defensive hostility but yet interested to meet this other life. He hesitated whether to swim over to this human on the orange object as it floated closer on low waves, indistinct in the soft rain. Or stay at this safe place where plenty of food lay beneath his paws.
His keen ears picked up sounds coming from the man’s mouth.
“Here boy, come over here and help me.”
The human sounded friendly. But there was something wrong. The man’s right leg looked twisted, and discolored. The dog smelt blood. So it still hesitated.
Then suddenly a rogue wave shoved through acres of debris, and the storm began to harshen, lightening spiked down, and then thunderclaps ached in the retriever’s ears, followed by drenching, torrential rain. Wreckage on the high sea shuffled back and forth, various objects jostling and smashing into each other, and the orange float rolled closer toward the dog’s baggage-island.
The survivor tied his open Swiss-army can-opener to long length of rope, and then anxiously swung it through the downpour, and pulled back trying to catch the hook on any ridge or strap of the baggage. But it slipped across the webbing of the bunched suitcases and whipped into the heaving waves.
Trying over 30 times, but failing, failing…. Exhausted and weak from blood loss, the man wrapped rope around his torso, tying himself to the large orange float, then lay down and slept through incessant lashing rain.
Across churning waves, the wet dog on the other island, hungry again, pawed deeper into its life raft, dug deep into luggage until it found a sack of strange tasting meat and wolfed it down, filling the emptiness within. Then the dog bit and pawed further until he could squirm into the cavity, escaping the chill wind and torrent.
Later when the retriever woke from a short nap, he saw the human, again; it was up and swinging its long rope. Images of play came to the Lab; he barked excitedly, dove into the shoving waves and caught the rope as it rolled back away. Maybe this man, like his owner, wanted to play keep away. So the sea-dog swam back to its island, scrambled up on to the baggage, turned toward the slumped man’s float, and gritting its teeth pulled back on the taut rope, and backed up across the flat area behind him, uttering a friendly growl.
Just after a thunderclap, the animal heard the man yelling, “Yes! Good dog!” whatever that meant, not what his owner always said, but the voice sounded positive; and seemed excited, maybe liked to play. So the retriever continued pulling backwards, while the man pulled back.
Gradually, the two floating islands moved closer, though at times the rope almost ripped from the dog’s mouth, as counter waves crashed them away from each other. The man also had his end knotted around his waist.
When the rope slackened due to the downward swoop of a wave, the dog chewed on the wet cording; not like his rawhide bone, but enjoyable.
Soon the storm sea grew even more violent, rising waves becoming 7 footers, then 11, rocking and rolling the two life rafts. The rope got yanked back and forth, and the dog pulled back, and the man held on till his hands bled.
Despite wind and wave, the two life-rafts came within about 3 feet of each other on a downs-wing of a huge wave. Ignoring stabs from his broken leg, the survivor shouted, “Now or never!” and, desperately, did a one-legged jump toward the dog’s island. But it wasn’t enough.
Throwing out his arms, he clawed at the side of the dog’s baggage clump, but fell into the raging sea. He caught one hand on mesh, and finally managed to pull himself up, and squirmed onto the top, just as another large wave swept over them. He rolled dangerously close to being heaved back over the side of the baggage island, but managed to hold on. And the large yellow Lab pulled back again.
Then the rope fell slack as the baggage-clump slumped down into a dark canyon of water. And the man lay, almost unconscious from pain, too groggy to do anything. Blood seeped from his compound fracture. And he didn’t care.
The retriever backed up and growled. This wasn’t his owner. Lying down, he chewed on the rope end, jawing at the knife’s plastic sides.
Suddenly, a 15-footer crashed, almost washed both man and dog overboard. The cascade of water gouged through the human’s mental fog, and he opened his eye and pulled on the rope, “Let go, boy. I’ve gotta secure us.”
At first the dog wouldn’t but then lost interest in their contest and sat on its haunches watching this stranger.
The human untied the knife and slipped it into his jacket pocket, then took the loose rope end and began threading it through handles of suitcases. The dog watched, but growled whenever the man pushed the rope his way.
“There, there, boy, no offense. Just securing our two habitats.” But then a sharp pain ripped up from his broken leg and he moaned again. “Now then, what if I attach this end to that leather collar around your neck?”
Tensing, the retriever growled and prepared to attack if this man tried to grab him.
“Okay, I get it. You’ll share your land, but we’re not friends. Got it.”
While the surf rose to 15-foot rollers. The man fell unconscious, and the rain plummeted; in the down swoops, the retriever paced back and forth, but then later as the storm worsened, he belly-crawled over to the crumpled sleeper, sniffed, and finally lay down next to the man like he always did every night with his owner.
Morning came bright and cool, shining its brilliant sunlight down on the floating graveyard and its two castaways.
Chapter 2: Sniper Attack
News Alert Exclusive! KNXTV LOS ANGELES:
“There’s been a shooting in Orange County. Our reporter Shelia Cameron was on location doing interviews near South Coast Plaza in Costa Mesa when shots rang out. One Muslim young woman has been wounded. No assailant has yet been apprehended.”
“The shooting took place during a noisy demonstration by over 103 Muslim students from the University of California Irvine and Orange Coast College. They are protesting Israel’s renewed bombings in Gaza 3 days ago.”
“That seriously injured woman hasn’t been identified, but she was flown by Medevac helicopter to Hoag Hospital in Newport Beach. Her condition is unknown at this time. Police are investigating the attack.”
Here’s the disturbing video from earlier:
>>“Free Palestine! Allah Akbar! God is great!”
Chanting rows of Muslim protesters walk up and down in front of South Coast Plaza near the 405 Freeway; carrying signs and waving Palestinian flags; some of them yelling to passing motorists.
Suddenly, there’s the unmistakable retort of several gunshots and one young woman lets go of her protest sign, spasms, and crumples to the concrete. Swathed from head to foot in Islamic clothes, she lays silent, red blooding her robe in the stomach area.
Chaos erupts. Screams and shouts in Arabic and Urdu—a few in English: “Oh my Allah! Help her! Where's the shooter? Protect the others!”
Camera footage jitters as the KNX-TV news crew tries to get past male protesters. Several angry men shove their hands up in front of the lens and shout angrily. Protesters run out onto Bristol Avenue; cars shriek to grinding stops. The harsh crunch of metal—two vehicles collide, a BMW smashes into the back of a Lexus.
More deafening shouts, a cacophony of horns blare; screams in Arabic, Urdu, and English; protesters running back and forth; the reporter Sheila Cameron loudly speaks into her microphone over the yelling, and repeats what has happened, is happening.
The newsreel camera videos the chaos; students shoulder around a line of head-covered women, and hold their hands out like shields; they scan the area--the Plaza buildings near Bloomingdales, and southward toward the 405 Freeway overpass. Fearful; expecting more gunshots.
Then everyone pulls out cellphones, punching numbers while the reporter pushes closer, continues to summarize the events.
But two Muslim young men shove Cameron back, knocking her mike to the pavement, and she falls and cries out. The camera jitters and blanks.<<
Back in the news room a somber newsman speaks again: “There’s our disturbing news alert. Fortunately, reporter Cameron wasn’t injured, nor our cameraman, Don Abinami, though the front of his video camera was damaged by angry protesters.”
“There you have it. Not war-torn Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, or Gaza but South Coast Plaza in Costa Mesa, where a young Muslim woman was shot at a protest march this morning, right here in safe and balmy Southern California; the dangerous violence erupted today at 9:13 am. Fast News Exclusive, always first on KNX-TV!
More updates at 6 and 11 tonight. This is Damon Sansant reporting. Good day.”
__________________________
"Walidy! Walidy! Daddy! Where are you? Walidy, I'm hurt! I can't get up." Affifah tried to rise, but fell back in jagged pain. Momentarily, she blacked out then woke in a vague haze, and gazed around her. A thing up above…a clear bag hanging down—oh, an IV. Pain medication? But my side hurts so! Why!?
She glanced at the medical stem in her right arm and then slowly felt of her body with limp fingers; I’m almost unclothed! Only wearing a short skimpy shift. She tried to pull the sheet and blanket up higher over her body. "Ohh!" she shrieked. “Walidy!”
After an urge to vomit, Affifah lay still, agonizing, lost…Where's my robe? I don't hear Zarafah, my goat...oh yeah, I'm in America, studying, but where is Dalia, my roommate? This isn't our apartment. Oh, yes, I got shot! At the demonstration…
Later some of the excruciating pain eased. She opened her eyes focused, and again tried to sit up, but pains stabbed violently. With her fingers she felt down to where heavy bandages covered her side and abdomen. I got shot, but how’d I get here? What hospital? She couldn't remember. Where’s my brothers? Mother? My father? Anxious she yelled, "Walidy!"
No answer. Only a quiet hum of shiny technical equipment above her. Affifah looked across the pastel-shaded room--another bed, but privacy curtains were pulled. The young Palestinian could see a window’s top part over on the other side. But her mind fogged…it was hard to think.
Her friend and she were hiding from the imam in the closet. No, that was in Nablus, back home, in Palestine...we had been chasing...who? Couldn’t remember…
She drifted off again…was walking in the souk with her oldest brother, Aadil; shopping for a special present for Mother...no, I’m kneeling, praying the Muslim call... in the small basement room of the Nablus mosque where women and girls worshiped.
But she couldn't remember the words! It’s so hot. And ceiling fans kept blowing papers into her face...worshipers' shoes kept tumbling down upon her from many shelves lining the walls….
She could hear words from Imam Bukhari broadcast through a speaker from the men's floor above. Oh, how her side ached, but the women in rows near her ignored her suffering and crying.
Suddenly, she heard herself scream out, "Help me, oh women of Sunni...There is no God but Allah and Mohammad is his messenger." Then nothing.
The cut-pain seemed less, so groggy…she touched her forehead again to the thick blue carpet…but instead found there in her face the damp page of her American literature textbook…large blocky print so unlike Arabic flowing scroll…she had fallen asleep reading very late…before an exam…trying to understand that Puritan Jonathan Edwards...no, she was chanting next to her grandmother and ma…her sister and her feeding chickens…a sudden agony in her side…Affifah screamed again. Then fell into darkness.
In her nightmare, chaos reigned near her home, explosions erupting. Jewish soldiers shooting, trying to kill her…no, her cousin…Later awaking…an imam shouting…reading my Qur'an, reciting sura…serving Walidy his favorite dish of—can’t remember! …oh musakhan and taboon bread…him sitting before our glaring TV...no, red lights and being hoisted—agony—into a white van…loud siren or her own screaming?…Nothing made sense...she wanted to sleep...sensed someone near her but couldn’t get her eyes open…the pain lessened again…I'll figure it out later, inshallah, I...
Affifah woke startled and shrieked. She couldn’t breathe. Her whole side burned with daggered fire, like torn open and red hot knives shoved deep into her vitals. She couldn't move. Her mouth clogged with sand, parched; she tried to reach for a water glass she saw through bleary vision by her bedside…
Hiccuping, and then gasping for breath, she finally breathed deep and calmed down. Looked across the room toward the other patient’s bed; the privacy curtains had been pulled back. An older lady lay still, but snored loudly; had bandages swathing her head. How could the woman sleep after my loud shrieks? Medicated, of course.
But my side still hurts! Where’s my medication?! The bag above her looked slack. Afifah punched the call button over and over and wept. "Walidy! Oh Allah!” She trembled violently, a blinking light up above seemed to go on forever.
Then came the sound of movement. A heavyset nurse with a pug nose leaned above her and fiddled with the IV. Then left without speaking.
Gradually, her grievous pain softened. Through the large window beyond the other patient’s bed, sunshine shone through glistening on metal cabinets. No doubt if I could get up and walk over there, I would be able see white breakers in the Pacific. I wonder if I could see surfers.
How she loved the ocean here. Had never seen it until coming to California. Growing up in the country of Palestine, (falsely called the West Bank by Americans), she had never seen the sea. Even though its waves washed up on a sandy beach less than 20 miles away from her family’s small apartment in Nablus, it might as well been the moon; for visiting the coast was forbidden by the Israeli Government.
Few Muslims ever got permission to go through all the checkpoints and past the Israeli Wall, and then through Jewish-controlled land, before finally reaching the Mediterranean Ocean.
Affifah still heard, in her memory, her grandmother wailing for hours, crying repeatedly the loss of her ancestral home in A-Bassa, an Arab fishing village in northern Galilee. “The Zionists, on a cold bitter day, that was in December 1948, came and stole our land, took away my dear house! Grampa had the key! It’s up near the Lebanese border. We had wonderful olive trees and the most beautiful garden.”
Her grandmother continued, weeping, “Not too far from those beautiful grottos in high cliffs. But when our martyrs drive out the Jews soon, inshallah, dear Affifah, you will get to see those grottos—so beautiful! Oh, Allah, why did I lose my home?” And her black clad elderly gramma would wail some more.
Oh Gramma, I miss you! Suddenly Affifah felt uncomfortable again. Where’s the nurse?! I need to go to the bathroom. Memories of her gramma’s plight fragmented away like a broken plate. She punched the call button. Finally, yelled.
“There, there, dear! Do you want me to call the nurse for you?” It was the older lady in the other bed. She had risen part way up from her pillow, her face wrinkled in concern. Her bandaged head like a genie’s or a mummy’s.
Affifah managed to suppress an agonized moan, and responded, “No, but thanks. I’ve already pushed the button.”
“You must be hurt very bad to be in such severe pain.”
“Yes. But how about you, grandmother?” And pointed at the huge swath of bandages on the elder woman’s head.
“Yeah, well, I get wobbly here at 87, can’t take my daily walks like I’m used to; for over 80 years, I’ve been a real walking dynamo. Two days ago, dear, I was out by my garage feeding the neighborhood cats, had set my cane down to put a little water in a dish, and wouldn’t you know it, over I go!”
She managed to sit up as she talked. “And I had to bang my head on the side of the brick flower bed. Really irritating.”
“Thanks to Allah! That you didn’t get hurt worse”—
“Oh dearie, the elderly woman interrupted, “you must be that young lady who got shot yesterday. I’m Martha Barnes. What’s your name? I saw that on the news. You falling down…Right here in Orange County! Shot?! What’s the world coming to? Well I know other places ‘re bad to worse. I watch more news than’s good for me. All them ISIS and HAMAS. But we got to keep informed don’t we? I guess you must be Muslim, yes? What did you say your name was?”
Finally the older woman paused, and the wounded student was able to answer. “Yes, that’s me. I’m glad to meet you. My name is Affifah. Thanks to Allah, most gracious, I survived—
“Well, well, glad to meet you too, but not here, if you know what I mean. Hospitals are no place to meet people. Where’re you from? Probably over there where they fight all the time, right?”
“I’m Palestinian, a foreign student on a scholarship to Orange Coast College, with a transfer plan to UC Irvine. To be a doctor. I was able to come to America several months a--”
The pug-nosed nurse came in, swung the privacy curtain closed and helped Affifah use the urinal. Then administered more sedative to her and she drifted off…
Later, she woke again. It was dark in the room, except for colored lights out the window, maybe ships or buildings along the coast-front. The gramma, Martha, was snoring loudly.
Affifah touched her bandaged side. Wish I was home in Nablus with my family, inshallah...NO! That would be worse. Daily patrols of Israelis...Be thankful. Allah is watching, most compassionate, most merciful. He knows best. I mustn’t keep complaining; I know that. Be thankful. And she slept, a troubled dreaming, where Zionists were standing over her and laughing while she cried.
Morning came. In the other bed, Martha was watching CNN on the TV monitor that jutted out from the corner. A bubbly reporter was interviewing Miley Cyrus. That scandalous actress stood near a fancy restaurant table wearing an obscene dress, showing most of her chest. Revolting. And, of course, her cropped hair uncovered.
No wonder our immam cautioned me against coming to America--even though he congratulated me on winning a medical scholarship.
“Well, dearie, you’ve finally woken up!” The elderly lady had turned to her, a big smile wrinkling her chubby face. “Feel better?”
“Yes, thanks to Allah, most compassionate”—
‘Here, here, you must be a very devout Muslim. Me, I’m lapsed Episcopalian, but got enough religion to know faith is important, but not enough to cause trouble, if you know what I mean—er sorry, didn’t mean to say anything negative. But the last news alert said more rockets have been fired into Damascus by Sunni rebels. Then Assad’s dropped barrel bombs and killed civilians. Now that ISIS beheaded another poor Muslim. I don’t get it.”
“Oh, yes, I know you’re Muslim! But you got attacked here…Makes no sense…No offense dearie, just speakin’ my mind. Why can’t we get all along with each other? Never mind…Tell me about yourself, otherwise I’ll keep talkin’, if you know what I mean.” And the older woman laughed, the droning of the news program ignored.
Affifah hesitated, not knowing how to explain complicated things like faith and the false heresy of the Shia, and of infidels like Assad and the Jews.
Finally she spoke, “My father, Walidly, back in Palestine, in Nablus, works a small falafel stand so he can’t send me enough for rent money; and my scholarship’s minimal; so while I take pre-med classes at Orange Coast College, I work as a live-in nurse care provider at Orange Board and Care 3 evenings a week.” She paused. But I won’t be there tonight….Why not? Oh, yes, I got shot….What was I saying? To whom? She couldn’t remember. She heard talk but drifted away….
Terrifying moments came back from the previous morning, swooped down on her like last summer when Israeli ‘copters raided a house 4 buildings down from their apartment in her home town. Only here—yesterday, there were no thunderous rotor blades…no, we were chanting, me and Dalia and Ghina and our friends, but…then incredible pain spasmed my side, a loud gunshot, and I collapsed. Screaming; then chaos. Can’t remember anything else. What happened next?
…She had been walking, carrying a placard next to Ghina, demonstrating with other students, mostly friends from UCI against more awful bombing by Israeli jets in Gaza last weekend—the Jews had killed so many again, and, also, because an Israeli professor was scheduled to speak at Orange Coast College.
But, oh, the cramping pain! How bad that had been for hours. However, now it was more manageable. She opened her eyes, and looked over toward the other patient, Martha, suddenly remembering she had been talking with her, but evidently had zoned out.
Night had fallen. Outside, through the window, Affifah could see lights like tiny stars along the coastal road, and beyond, the darkness of the Pacific Ocean. At least my pain level is way down.
She looked up at her IV and thanked Allah. Never had she dreamed she would be wounded by gunfire, not here America. Her cousin Hassan in Ramallah had been hit by a rubber bullet in the neck from an Israeli soldier’s gun. Two years ago. Had almost died, just for heaving a stone at a military jeep! But that’s occupied Palestine, her country, not America.
Chapter #3...To be continued
In the Light,
Daniel Wilcox
Dedication:
To the People of Palestine and Israel--
that they may share in peace
An Eye for the Beheading
By Daniel Wilcox
Historical Prologue
Give me at once the head of John the Baptist on a platter.”…Immediately the king sent an executioner with orders to bring John's head. He went and beheaded him in the prison.
Mark 6:25b, 27 New Testament of Bible
Beheading enemies is a very ancient custom. The Hebrew Bible describes David cutting off the head of Goliath and carrying it to Saul. It also mentions that the Philistines cut off the head of Saul.
1 Samuel 17:51, 1 Samuel 31:9-10
And pursued Midian, and brought the heads of Oreb and Zeeb to Gideon on the other side Jordan.
Judges 7:25
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Led away from the presence of [Caesar] Nero…[the Apostle] Paul was beheaded on the Ostesian road.
The Acts of the Holy Apostles Peter and Paul
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When you encounter the unbelievers on the battlefield, strike off their heads.
Holy Quran, Sura 47
“Your Lord inspired the angels with the message: ‘I will terrorize the unbelievers. Therefore smite them on their necks and every joint and incapacitate them. Strike off their heads and cut off each of their fingers and toes.”
Qur’an 8:12
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Behead: to cut off the head: decapitate
Webster’s 9th New Collegiate Dictionary
Heads up: used as a warning to look out for danger…
Merriam-Webster Dictionary
An eye for an eye: “…eye for eye, tooth for tooth. Just as he inflicted an injury upon a person, so shall it be inflicted upon him.” Leviticus 24:19-21
Violate/Violence: late 13c., "physical force used to inflict injury or damage," from Anglo-French and Old French violence, from Latin violentia "vehemence, impetuosity," from violentus "vehement, forcible," probably related to violare
Online Etymological Dictionary
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Chapter 1: Sea-Dog
Pacific Ocean off the coast of Baja Mexico, June, 2017
Smoking debris filled the horizon as the smudged sun set on another aeronautical disaster. Pawing through swirling water and small waves, a Labrador retriever didn't know anything of plane dynamics or Islamic terrorism, only that it was very thirsty and hungry. And Few-Leg who loved it was missing.
Momentarily, the dog raised its head and barked roughly, but got salty water in its jowls and lapped--odd tasting. Barked. And paddled on. No sounds and no smells, except acrid ones.
The yellow retriever swam around a large cabin section, past more burning objects, past broken flight chairs, discolored suitcases, and charred bodies, but didn't find his owner. He paddled and paddled in amongst the hundreds of yards of abandoned things. Finally, tiring, the dog spotted a large chunk of meshed baggage that floated up ahead, swaying on the waves.
He swam toward the bunched plateau and on his 3rd try succeeded in climbing out of the oily water up on to it. The large dog’s nose sensed eatables and, hurriedly, he chewed through black webbing and a synthetic cover, until he got a plastic packet in its teeth, bit through that, and ate dried salmon, scarfing up delicious morsels.
Then the retriever lay down by the empty packet, put his jowls onto his fore-paws and slept. In the night it rained and rained. He woke in the heavy shower, and lapped shallow water which had accumulated in broken food containers and dips in the baggage.
Suddenly, the dog spotted movement over to the right on a large odd-shaped orange float. As yet no scent had come to him of anything living, but now a wet-man smell filled his nostrils, a little like his owner’s when they played in the surf at home in Maryland. But this wasn't his owner’s smell.
Getting up, the retriever growled and then barked. Repeatedly. And paced back and forth, with defensive hostility but yet interested to meet this other life. He hesitated whether to swim over to this human on the orange object as it floated closer on low waves, indistinct in the soft rain. Or stay at this safe place where plenty of food lay beneath his paws.
His keen ears picked up sounds coming from the man’s mouth.
“Here boy, come over here and help me.”
The human sounded friendly. But there was something wrong. The man’s right leg looked twisted, and discolored. The dog smelt blood. So it still hesitated.
Then suddenly a rogue wave shoved through acres of debris, and the storm began to harshen, lightening spiked down, and then thunderclaps ached in the retriever’s ears, followed by drenching, torrential rain. Wreckage on the high sea shuffled back and forth, various objects jostling and smashing into each other, and the orange float rolled closer toward the dog’s baggage-island.
The survivor tied his open Swiss-army can-opener to long length of rope, and then anxiously swung it through the downpour, and pulled back trying to catch the hook on any ridge or strap of the baggage. But it slipped across the webbing of the bunched suitcases and whipped into the heaving waves.
Trying over 30 times, but failing, failing…. Exhausted and weak from blood loss, the man wrapped rope around his torso, tying himself to the large orange float, then lay down and slept through incessant lashing rain.
Across churning waves, the wet dog on the other island, hungry again, pawed deeper into its life raft, dug deep into luggage until it found a sack of strange tasting meat and wolfed it down, filling the emptiness within. Then the dog bit and pawed further until he could squirm into the cavity, escaping the chill wind and torrent.
Later when the retriever woke from a short nap, he saw the human, again; it was up and swinging its long rope. Images of play came to the Lab; he barked excitedly, dove into the shoving waves and caught the rope as it rolled back away. Maybe this man, like his owner, wanted to play keep away. So the sea-dog swam back to its island, scrambled up on to the baggage, turned toward the slumped man’s float, and gritting its teeth pulled back on the taut rope, and backed up across the flat area behind him, uttering a friendly growl.
Just after a thunderclap, the animal heard the man yelling, “Yes! Good dog!” whatever that meant, not what his owner always said, but the voice sounded positive; and seemed excited, maybe liked to play. So the retriever continued pulling backwards, while the man pulled back.
Gradually, the two floating islands moved closer, though at times the rope almost ripped from the dog’s mouth, as counter waves crashed them away from each other. The man also had his end knotted around his waist.
When the rope slackened due to the downward swoop of a wave, the dog chewed on the wet cording; not like his rawhide bone, but enjoyable.
Soon the storm sea grew even more violent, rising waves becoming 7 footers, then 11, rocking and rolling the two life rafts. The rope got yanked back and forth, and the dog pulled back, and the man held on till his hands bled.
Despite wind and wave, the two life-rafts came within about 3 feet of each other on a downs-wing of a huge wave. Ignoring stabs from his broken leg, the survivor shouted, “Now or never!” and, desperately, did a one-legged jump toward the dog’s island. But it wasn’t enough.
Throwing out his arms, he clawed at the side of the dog’s baggage clump, but fell into the raging sea. He caught one hand on mesh, and finally managed to pull himself up, and squirmed onto the top, just as another large wave swept over them. He rolled dangerously close to being heaved back over the side of the baggage island, but managed to hold on. And the large yellow Lab pulled back again.
Then the rope fell slack as the baggage-clump slumped down into a dark canyon of water. And the man lay, almost unconscious from pain, too groggy to do anything. Blood seeped from his compound fracture. And he didn’t care.
The retriever backed up and growled. This wasn’t his owner. Lying down, he chewed on the rope end, jawing at the knife’s plastic sides.
Suddenly, a 15-footer crashed, almost washed both man and dog overboard. The cascade of water gouged through the human’s mental fog, and he opened his eye and pulled on the rope, “Let go, boy. I’ve gotta secure us.”
At first the dog wouldn’t but then lost interest in their contest and sat on its haunches watching this stranger.
The human untied the knife and slipped it into his jacket pocket, then took the loose rope end and began threading it through handles of suitcases. The dog watched, but growled whenever the man pushed the rope his way.
“There, there, boy, no offense. Just securing our two habitats.” But then a sharp pain ripped up from his broken leg and he moaned again. “Now then, what if I attach this end to that leather collar around your neck?”
Tensing, the retriever growled and prepared to attack if this man tried to grab him.
“Okay, I get it. You’ll share your land, but we’re not friends. Got it.”
While the surf rose to 15-foot rollers. The man fell unconscious, and the rain plummeted; in the down swoops, the retriever paced back and forth, but then later as the storm worsened, he belly-crawled over to the crumpled sleeper, sniffed, and finally lay down next to the man like he always did every night with his owner.
Morning came bright and cool, shining its brilliant sunlight down on the floating graveyard and its two castaways.
Chapter 2: Sniper Attack
News Alert Exclusive! KNXTV LOS ANGELES:
“There’s been a shooting in Orange County. Our reporter Shelia Cameron was on location doing interviews near South Coast Plaza in Costa Mesa when shots rang out. One Muslim young woman has been wounded. No assailant has yet been apprehended.”
“The shooting took place during a noisy demonstration by over 103 Muslim students from the University of California Irvine and Orange Coast College. They are protesting Israel’s renewed bombings in Gaza 3 days ago.”
“That seriously injured woman hasn’t been identified, but she was flown by Medevac helicopter to Hoag Hospital in Newport Beach. Her condition is unknown at this time. Police are investigating the attack.”
Here’s the disturbing video from earlier:
>>“Free Palestine! Allah Akbar! God is great!”
Chanting rows of Muslim protesters walk up and down in front of South Coast Plaza near the 405 Freeway; carrying signs and waving Palestinian flags; some of them yelling to passing motorists.
Suddenly, there’s the unmistakable retort of several gunshots and one young woman lets go of her protest sign, spasms, and crumples to the concrete. Swathed from head to foot in Islamic clothes, she lays silent, red blooding her robe in the stomach area.
Chaos erupts. Screams and shouts in Arabic and Urdu—a few in English: “Oh my Allah! Help her! Where's the shooter? Protect the others!”
Camera footage jitters as the KNX-TV news crew tries to get past male protesters. Several angry men shove their hands up in front of the lens and shout angrily. Protesters run out onto Bristol Avenue; cars shriek to grinding stops. The harsh crunch of metal—two vehicles collide, a BMW smashes into the back of a Lexus.
More deafening shouts, a cacophony of horns blare; screams in Arabic, Urdu, and English; protesters running back and forth; the reporter Sheila Cameron loudly speaks into her microphone over the yelling, and repeats what has happened, is happening.
The newsreel camera videos the chaos; students shoulder around a line of head-covered women, and hold their hands out like shields; they scan the area--the Plaza buildings near Bloomingdales, and southward toward the 405 Freeway overpass. Fearful; expecting more gunshots.
Then everyone pulls out cellphones, punching numbers while the reporter pushes closer, continues to summarize the events.
But two Muslim young men shove Cameron back, knocking her mike to the pavement, and she falls and cries out. The camera jitters and blanks.<<
Back in the news room a somber newsman speaks again: “There’s our disturbing news alert. Fortunately, reporter Cameron wasn’t injured, nor our cameraman, Don Abinami, though the front of his video camera was damaged by angry protesters.”
“There you have it. Not war-torn Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, or Gaza but South Coast Plaza in Costa Mesa, where a young Muslim woman was shot at a protest march this morning, right here in safe and balmy Southern California; the dangerous violence erupted today at 9:13 am. Fast News Exclusive, always first on KNX-TV!
More updates at 6 and 11 tonight. This is Damon Sansant reporting. Good day.”
__________________________
"Walidy! Walidy! Daddy! Where are you? Walidy, I'm hurt! I can't get up." Affifah tried to rise, but fell back in jagged pain. Momentarily, she blacked out then woke in a vague haze, and gazed around her. A thing up above…a clear bag hanging down—oh, an IV. Pain medication? But my side hurts so! Why!?
She glanced at the medical stem in her right arm and then slowly felt of her body with limp fingers; I’m almost unclothed! Only wearing a short skimpy shift. She tried to pull the sheet and blanket up higher over her body. "Ohh!" she shrieked. “Walidy!”
After an urge to vomit, Affifah lay still, agonizing, lost…Where's my robe? I don't hear Zarafah, my goat...oh yeah, I'm in America, studying, but where is Dalia, my roommate? This isn't our apartment. Oh, yes, I got shot! At the demonstration…
Later some of the excruciating pain eased. She opened her eyes focused, and again tried to sit up, but pains stabbed violently. With her fingers she felt down to where heavy bandages covered her side and abdomen. I got shot, but how’d I get here? What hospital? She couldn't remember. Where’s my brothers? Mother? My father? Anxious she yelled, "Walidy!"
No answer. Only a quiet hum of shiny technical equipment above her. Affifah looked across the pastel-shaded room--another bed, but privacy curtains were pulled. The young Palestinian could see a window’s top part over on the other side. But her mind fogged…it was hard to think.
Her friend and she were hiding from the imam in the closet. No, that was in Nablus, back home, in Palestine...we had been chasing...who? Couldn’t remember…
She drifted off again…was walking in the souk with her oldest brother, Aadil; shopping for a special present for Mother...no, I’m kneeling, praying the Muslim call... in the small basement room of the Nablus mosque where women and girls worshiped.
But she couldn't remember the words! It’s so hot. And ceiling fans kept blowing papers into her face...worshipers' shoes kept tumbling down upon her from many shelves lining the walls….
She could hear words from Imam Bukhari broadcast through a speaker from the men's floor above. Oh, how her side ached, but the women in rows near her ignored her suffering and crying.
Suddenly, she heard herself scream out, "Help me, oh women of Sunni...There is no God but Allah and Mohammad is his messenger." Then nothing.
The cut-pain seemed less, so groggy…she touched her forehead again to the thick blue carpet…but instead found there in her face the damp page of her American literature textbook…large blocky print so unlike Arabic flowing scroll…she had fallen asleep reading very late…before an exam…trying to understand that Puritan Jonathan Edwards...no, she was chanting next to her grandmother and ma…her sister and her feeding chickens…a sudden agony in her side…Affifah screamed again. Then fell into darkness.
In her nightmare, chaos reigned near her home, explosions erupting. Jewish soldiers shooting, trying to kill her…no, her cousin…Later awaking…an imam shouting…reading my Qur'an, reciting sura…serving Walidy his favorite dish of—can’t remember! …oh musakhan and taboon bread…him sitting before our glaring TV...no, red lights and being hoisted—agony—into a white van…loud siren or her own screaming?…Nothing made sense...she wanted to sleep...sensed someone near her but couldn’t get her eyes open…the pain lessened again…I'll figure it out later, inshallah, I...
Affifah woke startled and shrieked. She couldn’t breathe. Her whole side burned with daggered fire, like torn open and red hot knives shoved deep into her vitals. She couldn't move. Her mouth clogged with sand, parched; she tried to reach for a water glass she saw through bleary vision by her bedside…
Hiccuping, and then gasping for breath, she finally breathed deep and calmed down. Looked across the room toward the other patient’s bed; the privacy curtains had been pulled back. An older lady lay still, but snored loudly; had bandages swathing her head. How could the woman sleep after my loud shrieks? Medicated, of course.
But my side still hurts! Where’s my medication?! The bag above her looked slack. Afifah punched the call button over and over and wept. "Walidy! Oh Allah!” She trembled violently, a blinking light up above seemed to go on forever.
Then came the sound of movement. A heavyset nurse with a pug nose leaned above her and fiddled with the IV. Then left without speaking.
Gradually, her grievous pain softened. Through the large window beyond the other patient’s bed, sunshine shone through glistening on metal cabinets. No doubt if I could get up and walk over there, I would be able see white breakers in the Pacific. I wonder if I could see surfers.
How she loved the ocean here. Had never seen it until coming to California. Growing up in the country of Palestine, (falsely called the West Bank by Americans), she had never seen the sea. Even though its waves washed up on a sandy beach less than 20 miles away from her family’s small apartment in Nablus, it might as well been the moon; for visiting the coast was forbidden by the Israeli Government.
Few Muslims ever got permission to go through all the checkpoints and past the Israeli Wall, and then through Jewish-controlled land, before finally reaching the Mediterranean Ocean.
Affifah still heard, in her memory, her grandmother wailing for hours, crying repeatedly the loss of her ancestral home in A-Bassa, an Arab fishing village in northern Galilee. “The Zionists, on a cold bitter day, that was in December 1948, came and stole our land, took away my dear house! Grampa had the key! It’s up near the Lebanese border. We had wonderful olive trees and the most beautiful garden.”
Her grandmother continued, weeping, “Not too far from those beautiful grottos in high cliffs. But when our martyrs drive out the Jews soon, inshallah, dear Affifah, you will get to see those grottos—so beautiful! Oh, Allah, why did I lose my home?” And her black clad elderly gramma would wail some more.
Oh Gramma, I miss you! Suddenly Affifah felt uncomfortable again. Where’s the nurse?! I need to go to the bathroom. Memories of her gramma’s plight fragmented away like a broken plate. She punched the call button. Finally, yelled.
“There, there, dear! Do you want me to call the nurse for you?” It was the older lady in the other bed. She had risen part way up from her pillow, her face wrinkled in concern. Her bandaged head like a genie’s or a mummy’s.
Affifah managed to suppress an agonized moan, and responded, “No, but thanks. I’ve already pushed the button.”
“You must be hurt very bad to be in such severe pain.”
“Yes. But how about you, grandmother?” And pointed at the huge swath of bandages on the elder woman’s head.
“Yeah, well, I get wobbly here at 87, can’t take my daily walks like I’m used to; for over 80 years, I’ve been a real walking dynamo. Two days ago, dear, I was out by my garage feeding the neighborhood cats, had set my cane down to put a little water in a dish, and wouldn’t you know it, over I go!”
She managed to sit up as she talked. “And I had to bang my head on the side of the brick flower bed. Really irritating.”
“Thanks to Allah! That you didn’t get hurt worse”—
“Oh dearie, the elderly woman interrupted, “you must be that young lady who got shot yesterday. I’m Martha Barnes. What’s your name? I saw that on the news. You falling down…Right here in Orange County! Shot?! What’s the world coming to? Well I know other places ‘re bad to worse. I watch more news than’s good for me. All them ISIS and HAMAS. But we got to keep informed don’t we? I guess you must be Muslim, yes? What did you say your name was?”
Finally the older woman paused, and the wounded student was able to answer. “Yes, that’s me. I’m glad to meet you. My name is Affifah. Thanks to Allah, most gracious, I survived—
“Well, well, glad to meet you too, but not here, if you know what I mean. Hospitals are no place to meet people. Where’re you from? Probably over there where they fight all the time, right?”
“I’m Palestinian, a foreign student on a scholarship to Orange Coast College, with a transfer plan to UC Irvine. To be a doctor. I was able to come to America several months a--”
The pug-nosed nurse came in, swung the privacy curtain closed and helped Affifah use the urinal. Then administered more sedative to her and she drifted off…
Later, she woke again. It was dark in the room, except for colored lights out the window, maybe ships or buildings along the coast-front. The gramma, Martha, was snoring loudly.
Affifah touched her bandaged side. Wish I was home in Nablus with my family, inshallah...NO! That would be worse. Daily patrols of Israelis...Be thankful. Allah is watching, most compassionate, most merciful. He knows best. I mustn’t keep complaining; I know that. Be thankful. And she slept, a troubled dreaming, where Zionists were standing over her and laughing while she cried.
Morning came. In the other bed, Martha was watching CNN on the TV monitor that jutted out from the corner. A bubbly reporter was interviewing Miley Cyrus. That scandalous actress stood near a fancy restaurant table wearing an obscene dress, showing most of her chest. Revolting. And, of course, her cropped hair uncovered.
No wonder our immam cautioned me against coming to America--even though he congratulated me on winning a medical scholarship.
“Well, dearie, you’ve finally woken up!” The elderly lady had turned to her, a big smile wrinkling her chubby face. “Feel better?”
“Yes, thanks to Allah, most compassionate”—
‘Here, here, you must be a very devout Muslim. Me, I’m lapsed Episcopalian, but got enough religion to know faith is important, but not enough to cause trouble, if you know what I mean—er sorry, didn’t mean to say anything negative. But the last news alert said more rockets have been fired into Damascus by Sunni rebels. Then Assad’s dropped barrel bombs and killed civilians. Now that ISIS beheaded another poor Muslim. I don’t get it.”
“Oh, yes, I know you’re Muslim! But you got attacked here…Makes no sense…No offense dearie, just speakin’ my mind. Why can’t we get all along with each other? Never mind…Tell me about yourself, otherwise I’ll keep talkin’, if you know what I mean.” And the older woman laughed, the droning of the news program ignored.
Affifah hesitated, not knowing how to explain complicated things like faith and the false heresy of the Shia, and of infidels like Assad and the Jews.
Finally she spoke, “My father, Walidly, back in Palestine, in Nablus, works a small falafel stand so he can’t send me enough for rent money; and my scholarship’s minimal; so while I take pre-med classes at Orange Coast College, I work as a live-in nurse care provider at Orange Board and Care 3 evenings a week.” She paused. But I won’t be there tonight….Why not? Oh, yes, I got shot….What was I saying? To whom? She couldn’t remember. She heard talk but drifted away….
Terrifying moments came back from the previous morning, swooped down on her like last summer when Israeli ‘copters raided a house 4 buildings down from their apartment in her home town. Only here—yesterday, there were no thunderous rotor blades…no, we were chanting, me and Dalia and Ghina and our friends, but…then incredible pain spasmed my side, a loud gunshot, and I collapsed. Screaming; then chaos. Can’t remember anything else. What happened next?
…She had been walking, carrying a placard next to Ghina, demonstrating with other students, mostly friends from UCI against more awful bombing by Israeli jets in Gaza last weekend—the Jews had killed so many again, and, also, because an Israeli professor was scheduled to speak at Orange Coast College.
But, oh, the cramping pain! How bad that had been for hours. However, now it was more manageable. She opened her eyes, and looked over toward the other patient, Martha, suddenly remembering she had been talking with her, but evidently had zoned out.
Night had fallen. Outside, through the window, Affifah could see lights like tiny stars along the coastal road, and beyond, the darkness of the Pacific Ocean. At least my pain level is way down.
She looked up at her IV and thanked Allah. Never had she dreamed she would be wounded by gunfire, not here America. Her cousin Hassan in Ramallah had been hit by a rubber bullet in the neck from an Israeli soldier’s gun. Two years ago. Had almost died, just for heaving a stone at a military jeep! But that’s occupied Palestine, her country, not America.
Chapter #3...To be continued
In the Light,
Daniel Wilcox
Tuesday, September 17, 2013
Corny Quaker Humor
Today, let’s take a break from all the spiritual reflection, historical commentary, and theological analysis, and instead tell a few jokes.
But I can’t until the Spirit moves me;-) Besides we haven’t formed at least 7 committees to discuss it. Then give us a ‘minute’ to write it all out and pass it on? Whatever happened to “Be still and know”?)
Yes, I do have my corny side. In junior high, joking was my first name. You see, I’m from Nebraska—“Shucks, yah, I’m a cornhusker from way back. Lots of corn…
--
‘Herd about’ the Quaker cowgirl, Patty, who got caught and surrounded in a stampede?
--
Or what about that young Quaker girl who didn’t want to move from Philadelphia to Erie, Pennsylvania on Halloween.
She started crying and blubbering, “But, Dad, it will be too eerie!”
--
Consider the case of the Quaker student about to take a test on William Penn. He turned around in his desk and asked the girl behind him, “Got a ‘pencil, Vania’?”
--
This is a long one like so many teachers' lectures;-):
Or how about the 2 college freshmen? Their professor was lecturing, “When William Penn founded a colony in America, he chose the name Sylvania (forest or woods in Latin). But King Charles II chose otherwise and named it Pennsylvania for William’s father.”
“Even though Penn was of British aristocratic heritage, his conversion to faith in Christ, led him to seek to live a humble, altruistic life. Because of his honesty and respect toward the Indians, there was peace in Pennsylvania between the Indians and European immigrants for about 50 years!”
“But then came the next generation of Quakers. They didn’t live in the Light of God, but instead focused on themselves and cheated the Indians of much land. Then they worried about the various tribes attacking.”
Finally, the professor asked the class, “Do you see how the colony changed for the worse when the colonists turned from the Way of God?”
“Yes,” piped up a freshman, the later Quakers were “pensive-vain--
Yah” butted in another student.
--
Did you hear the one about the Quaker who raised ducks but didn’t like how they kept saying “Quack, quack.”
So he gave them crackers each time he got them to stop saying “quack, quack.” But then they started padding about his yard squawking, “Quacker, Quacker!”
Finally, he switched to feeding them with oats but wouldn't you know it, they squawked, “‘Quacker’ Oats!”
--
There is an old Quaker joke about a stranger who came into a Quaker meeting. Nothing was happening, so the man leaned over and asked one of the Friends, "When is the service going to start?"
The Friend whispered back, "The service will start outside after the end of worship."
--
What are the only 2 musical instruments that Quakers disapprove of? ‘Sax and violins.’
--
Heard about the Friendly little kitty who came into meeting, but got stepped on, and screeched, “Me-Owie”?
"Shhh," said the clerk. "This isn't a Pentecostal meeting!"
--
There was this elderly Quaker man who had constipation troubles. When he took his young pup out for a walk in the neighborhood, the puppy suddenly squatted, then turned and looked and barked, “Bow-el, wow!”
--
Lastly, there’s the Quaker store manager who refused to sell liquor, at least he said, not until he was in the “Spirits.”
Instead, he sold tea—and sold so much of that he loved totaling up his earnings!
Because you see, he was a ‘tea-totaler.’
Lightsomely,
Daniel Wilcox
But I can’t until the Spirit moves me;-) Besides we haven’t formed at least 7 committees to discuss it. Then give us a ‘minute’ to write it all out and pass it on? Whatever happened to “Be still and know”?)
Yes, I do have my corny side. In junior high, joking was my first name. You see, I’m from Nebraska—“Shucks, yah, I’m a cornhusker from way back. Lots of corn…
--
‘Herd about’ the Quaker cowgirl, Patty, who got caught and surrounded in a stampede?
--
Or what about that young Quaker girl who didn’t want to move from Philadelphia to Erie, Pennsylvania on Halloween.
She started crying and blubbering, “But, Dad, it will be too eerie!”
--
Consider the case of the Quaker student about to take a test on William Penn. He turned around in his desk and asked the girl behind him, “Got a ‘pencil, Vania’?”
--
This is a long one like so many teachers' lectures;-):
Or how about the 2 college freshmen? Their professor was lecturing, “When William Penn founded a colony in America, he chose the name Sylvania (forest or woods in Latin). But King Charles II chose otherwise and named it Pennsylvania for William’s father.”
“Even though Penn was of British aristocratic heritage, his conversion to faith in Christ, led him to seek to live a humble, altruistic life. Because of his honesty and respect toward the Indians, there was peace in Pennsylvania between the Indians and European immigrants for about 50 years!”
“But then came the next generation of Quakers. They didn’t live in the Light of God, but instead focused on themselves and cheated the Indians of much land. Then they worried about the various tribes attacking.”
Finally, the professor asked the class, “Do you see how the colony changed for the worse when the colonists turned from the Way of God?”
“Yes,” piped up a freshman, the later Quakers were “pensive-vain--
Yah” butted in another student.
--
Did you hear the one about the Quaker who raised ducks but didn’t like how they kept saying “Quack, quack.”
So he gave them crackers each time he got them to stop saying “quack, quack.” But then they started padding about his yard squawking, “Quacker, Quacker!”
Finally, he switched to feeding them with oats but wouldn't you know it, they squawked, “‘Quacker’ Oats!”
--
There is an old Quaker joke about a stranger who came into a Quaker meeting. Nothing was happening, so the man leaned over and asked one of the Friends, "When is the service going to start?"
The Friend whispered back, "The service will start outside after the end of worship."
--
What are the only 2 musical instruments that Quakers disapprove of? ‘Sax and violins.’
--
Heard about the Friendly little kitty who came into meeting, but got stepped on, and screeched, “Me-Owie”?
"Shhh," said the clerk. "This isn't a Pentecostal meeting!"
--
There was this elderly Quaker man who had constipation troubles. When he took his young pup out for a walk in the neighborhood, the puppy suddenly squatted, then turned and looked and barked, “Bow-el, wow!”
--
Lastly, there’s the Quaker store manager who refused to sell liquor, at least he said, not until he was in the “Spirits.”
Instead, he sold tea—and sold so much of that he loved totaling up his earnings!
Because you see, he was a ‘tea-totaler.’
Lightsomely,
Daniel Wilcox
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