This morning the world is turned upside down. You should not have been born. As usual, the turtle-doves have come to eat on the balcony, you have put on the traditional Egyptian dress that your mother gave you at least twenty years ago. On the walls you have hung a damaged African cloth. There is a lamp, which belonged to your grandmother, there is also a drawing of the painter Mark Tobey, which also belonged to her, and then a bed made of African wood. There is an old Arabic calligraphy, « Thuluth » style, another very old Arabic calligraphy, « Kufi » style. There are two samurais dancing for the moon, this is a Japanese Indian ink from the Edo period. That’s what’s left of your life, it’s a lot and it’s a little at the same time. There is also this little lucky pig in the shape of a bell, that your brother brought back from Japan about ten years ago. Tomorrow you’ll take the train to see your best friend die. Afterwards, you know, it will be another life, for you, everything will be different, the rain as well as the thought, the trees as well as the clouds, the living as well as the dead, the dreams as well as the nightmares, the eyes as well as the hands. If you come back here, and you don’t know when, you don’t know why, life will have no meaning. It has however, in general, only the meaning that one can get from suffering, and so I imagine, those that do never suffer, are neither not alive.
