To whom it may concern: So tempting is the child-play. So provoking is the non-thought. So feeble are the reactive reactions. So despicable is the �We support our�� slogan wherever it comes from. However, the bigger picture is so beautiful. It deserves the patience� the margins and letdowns. Yet, the regrouping is very interesting. The obsession of endlessly searching for enemies is an art well developed by IL Grande Capo. It is sad to see people who should know better falling for that technique. The wall that withstood the assault of the Mafia is not going to shake now.  

Those cultured in the realm of groupthink will never understand independence. Those who are used to guiding by the leashes of personalities would never learn to walk without a leash. Anyone who claims to respect the sanctity of free speech and gets a knee jerk every time it is practiced has a fake posture. Being a mouthpiece for others and being your own mouth is worlds apart. Advice: energies conserved for better use could be more productive. But then, this might be an idiotic reasoning and a barren dialogue� 

My ragged clothes are better than your old clothes. My shabby coat has white patches; yours is with green patches. My hunger is more gracious than your hunger. When I get sick, I just get sick. If you ever get sick, you will certainly die. When I beg, I maintain my dignity; you maintain your dignity by begging. We are different, very different. I sleep on top of the floor; you sleep under the roof. Not having covers is the only similarity that we have.  

The rivers are dry. They never were wet; it is only the seasonal water that traveled through them. Nevertheless, they are dry. The ghosts wanted to walk on the riverbed. The water stopped them and then it was no more. A red flood has long replaced the water. It replaced the transparent water that looked like the transparent ghost. The ghost who reads Haddas Ertra. Time for a trip to poverty land in spite of the noise.

Sleep walking. Sleep sleeping. Sleep dreaming. Sleep snoring. Do people dream when they snore?  

I know a few people who snore in broad daylight. They look wide-awake when they are actually sleeping� and dreaming. Yet they snore and snore with their eyelids open. The house is on fire and they snore. The street is on fire and they snore. Not even a siren would wake them up. They sleep and snore like a brick wall. Yes, I have seen and heard brick walls that sleep and snore. Just like stones, boulders and bricks, they snore.  Fire, FIRE, goes a helpless cry. The cry is lost in the noise of the snore.  

***image1:left***Helpless, the living ghosts throw seashells to the ground. Read them. Hear what they say. If you can�t hear them talk, it is your fault. You are sleeping. The language of the seashells is ghostly; they do speak in whispers. A language not so many people understand. Waiting for the ZaEgol, the WedE, the magical seashell to talk asks patience. Waiting is too bad for those who need urgent delivery, af-arkbu ; those used to waiting have nothing to lose. The shells might be silent today; but the noise elsewhere is deafening. 

Shuku-Shuka is a fairy trip to our territories in alien-land: we do have territories there. It is deep in outer space and you can go there on a horseback. A mule would cut the trip into half the time it takes a horse to reach there. We have fast mules. Faster than horses. Some people prefer to walk there�on foot; no direction needed. All they have to do is walk to the dark side of the moon and two right turns later there is a big star: that is an Eritrean territory. The trip is known as the Shuku-Shuka journey. Once on surface of the territory, you are likely to meet more ghosts than you ever imagined existed. Welcome to the land of hunger� and noise.  

Enjoy stargazing in the middle of the forest� all night. Pitch darkness helps the weary eyes. Walk in the dark and speak to a black ghost. Ghosts come in white and black ... Except the ghost that reads Haddas Ertra. In the movies, ghosts are transparent. Transparent ghosts are dead; they have left us the world and its noise. Gave up on us. Other ghosts are alive. Their objective in life, rather in death, is to scare people. They look human. In fact, most are human. The person sitting next to you might be a ghost. Actually, it might be one of those transparent ghosts and you have no way of telling whether you are sitting next to a ghost or not. Maybe the person you talked to last night was a ghost; there is no way of telling!  If you did not talk to anyone last night, it is more likely that you might be living in ghost-land and you do not know it. More reason to try hard to be certain where you live. After all, you might find out you do not actually live where you think you live. It is possible you might discover you are not YOU. Just mimicking and moving your eyebrows needlessly while you serve a ghost. Don�t we have enough Haddas Ertras? Do newspapers reappear as ghosts when they die�when they become victims of shredding? The noise. 

It might turn to be worse. You might not exist at all. It might be an illusion and when you wake up, you might find yourself in line with the helpless beggars. Those who are adorned with handcuff on their wrists and stomach-cuffs on their bellies. Stomach-cuffs are a new copyrighted invention. The ghosts are marketing the new product. Ghosts do not live in their world; they migrate. They come to us to sell their new inventions and we go to them to buy their sympathy. Yet neither of us moves. We meet in one place. Moreover, that place is getting hungry once more! But hey, they have a lot of newspapers� and Haddas Ertra. 

In the middle of it all, the mountain spoke... actually, the thing that thinks it is a mountain. The husky voice traveled through the deep and narrow ravines leaving behind it an almost silent whispering echo. Then it changed to a thundering voice that scared the beggars away. They disappeared from the showy street that pretends to be the home of the rich. The street is ready to receive the fat beggars; it is their promenade time. Round bellies all over! 

There is an elder person who swears he is a ghost. He acts like one. At times, he disappears in thin air �imitating� a transparent ghost� or becoming his real self. Between switching appearances, he remembers events in his past. He mentions those times with great anxiety. He just keeps remembering�in his ghostly memories, while murmuring to himself. No audible words, just a noise. To forget it all, he reads Haddas Ertra and neo-Haddas Ertra. Good reading!  

Fuses that burn quickly tell a lot in a test of resilience. It is a test of which triumphs: group thinkers versus me-thinkers! My organization or my people. Minds triggered with a touch of a feather. My group and me. Forget the land. Forget the people. Partisan consciousness. No organization no country� neither hungry nation nor one with full stomach. So says the guru. I shrug off temptations to fencing. There is no fence in the land of Zorroes. Zorroes who engage in fencing behind the scene. Then the mountain speaks: Beqli ab zebelet tebl; lgwam atsnE. Cool it man. Cool it for the folders might blow your sanity away. Those are folders better kept in dumb cellars. Similar to wine, they are best when mature. When the cups are raised, we will drink to your health! 

Before I finish, let me say this�.

On a second thought, I hate going to the wine cellar.

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