And Now For Something Completely Different

Blog-block makes you start scrounging for ideas and posting things you never thought you'd post. This is one of them. A few years ago, a friend and I tried a writing exercise. We sent each other random photos and we had to write something about the story taking place in the photo. The photo that prompted this writing is lost to the mists of time, but it was a black and white shot of two girls and a guy leaning over the railing of a ferry heading for the Statue of Liberty. The date is the actual date I wrote this, and I thought of it immediately after 9/11.


Journal Entry
4/10/01

Look at that stupid bitch. She has no idea that in about an hour, she's going to rank with the all time stupid bitches. Typhoid Mary, Mrs. O'Leary's clumsy cow, and whoever decided that a giant wooden horse was a lovely gift. I can't even look at her cute, dumb little blond self without laughing...I get the most inappropriate emotions at very important moments. She's even taking pictures of the Statue of Liberty for my "brother", even though she works there. Which is basically why the poor bitch is in this situation. I think she might really love him, even after only a few weeks. I'm almost embarrassed for her. It kind of irks me that he's fucking her, but it's all for the mission. He still comes home to me at night. I kind of want to tell her this when it's all done...let her live with her shame, even if only for a moment.

I'm sorry to whoever finds this, I'm not being very clear. My name is Heather. My boyfriend's name is Josh. And we're currently on a ferry to the Statue of Liberty. When we get there, Josh's carefully cultivated 'girlfriend' of three weeks will let us in the employee entrance, where security is just a word. We’ll take the elevator to the torch, like good tourists. Then Josh will escort her to the rail to enjoy the view. Then I will plant this thermonuclear bomb that's in my bag, detonate it, and pretty much melt everything from here to the Bronx.

Yeah, so I have a flair for the dramatic. I'm entitled, I'm about to be the most storied terrorist in history. The President is in New York. They're busy patting everyone in the damn city down for a gun, and here I am carrying around Hiroshima X 5 in my Saks tote bag. I guess it's like that old adage about how the bigger the lie, the easier people will believe it. So, the President will be dead. And the Vice-President, who's tagging along. Which means that soon, a third rate senator will be running a country that just lost the largest city in the world.

My dad is just not going to believe this. Dad was an oil company executive, and I spent about half my childhood in Syria. So did Josh. There was a little enclave of American oil types, and that's where I met him. We would go on little expeditions into the city, out of the safety of our little Americatown. We made friends, and got invited to dinner, and did sleepovers, and all the stuff kids do everywhere, I guess. We also saw Islam. And we liked the purity of it. You can bet that the recruiters loved us. We can walk around all over America without being suspected of either bombing things or selling Slurpees. These fucking Americans and their 'religion'. They bitch about going to church for an hour once a week, and then bitch some more when they are forced to eat lobster and crab on Fridays during Lent. I never realized how soft Americans were until I discovered Islam. Our people are killing and dying for religion all over the world, and that's why we're going to win. It's so poetic too...America never thought that in the marketplace of ideas, one of their own might find their merchandise rotting from the inside. I guess that's about to bite them in the ass. They really should have expected something like this to happen. In a world where Friends is dubbed into French and Chinese kids think that the NBA is Fan-fucking-Tastic, it had to go the other way at some point.

Okay, enough of the rhetoric. We're about to dock, and I have to leave this journal here on this ferry and hope it survives. I kinda wish I could watch this from New Jersey instead of being in the middle of it. But hey, a free trip to heaven is a free trip to heaven. Praise Allah.