There is another air-raid in my fifth month in the city. Everything is more or less the same — a prior warning, people heading to the shelters, taking perhaps a last look at their poor houses as they went, the planes coming into the sun, from over the sea.
But this time, I do something. I am in charge of an antiaircraft gun mounted on a jeep. There is a kid to help, belts of ammunition and a driver. Somehow, I am not worried about messing it up this time. I fire off rounds like crazy. I knew I would.
The driver is tearing round the streets of Beirut, following the planes, driving crazily. Tyres squealing, suddenly reversing, it is like an action film.
The planes are breaking the sound-barrier — it is terrifying, right over our heads — and the noise and the vibration shake the city like the worst thunderstorm one could imagine.
The planes aren’t bombing the city, but two areas about 12 miles to our south.
I fire until the barrel has a dull red glow. The boy who is with me bangs me on the shoulder and shouts, “If you fire any more, the barrel will explode!”
I stop and we change barrels quickly. I go on firing, possessed.
It is all over in a few minutes. I have to be stopped when the planes have gone. I am a machine that needs switching off.
Since they weren’t bombing us, there are no bodies or sirens or ambulances or crying — but there is plenty of shouting.
Gradually it gets quiet again and people are walking around and talking.
But it isn’t quiet inside me. The adrenaline must be pumping like crazy during the raid. I am high.
I’ve done something.
A day or two passes, and the adrenaline leaves me, and I realize that nothing is different.
Except that I am pushing down a lot of violence. Everything is building up in me, but I really have nothing to aim it at — no sensible way to use it. It is almost choking me.
I want to go to Libya to visit Abu Ammar. I need to go.
