Issam Adel Hamad

The Palestinian Centipede Issam Adel Hamad

The insect society in the Lebanese Garden is diverse; all kinds of insects coexist side by side, apparently in peace. Franco Angioni, an Italian insect expert, visits the Garden, and is astonished to observe, with his magnifying glass, the extraordinary behavior of its Insects. "Caring for the others' children," he writes in his notebook when he sees a black Beetle foraging for food to feed three baby Aphids. When he rescues a Lacewing from a cobweb, the insect does not fly away; she clings to his hand and flutters her beautiful wings. "Gratitude," he writes, a 'feeling' that will soon turn into another, more serious emotion: Whenever Angioni shows up in the field, the Lacewing touches down and alights on his head, face, and cheek. Before long, she settles on his lips and gives him a kiss! The insect expert can't afford to seem ridiculous, but he writes, "Strange. The insects of this garden exhibit human behavior!" Robert Fisk, the English journalist, solves the mystery: It's the civil war, or rather a 'game' that turned the people of Lebanon into insects. Boys, taken toinsect extermination, sprayed a bus WITH INSECTICIDES. As the Palestinian refugees on board were waving a HUNDRED HANDS out the windows on both sides, the boys confused the bus with a centipede, the fearful HUNDRED-LEGGED insect, and sprayed it! The bus turned into a Centipede and died, and the boys, with their insecticide sprayers, engaged in the game, spray-me-spray-you: "Die, dung Beetle!" Pssssh "Take this splash, Mosquito!" Overwhelmed by the intensity of the poisonous gases, the grown-ups crawl to the basements of their houses and cower there, listening to the swishing sounds outside. Whoever ventures to go out gets sprayed, hit by a fly whisk, stamped on, or else caught with a net and put in a glass jar, among other Crickets and Butterflies, to be exchanged, later on, with some Cockroach maybe, caught by the 'enemy' boys. Himself transformed into a blue Fly, Robert Fisk buzzes with the fact that once you 'insectise' a fellow human being, you turn into a beast yourself. And therefore, the countrydegenerates into a wilderness trodden by Beasts of prey, local and foreign, such as the Lion, the Leopard, the Tiger, and even the prehistoric flying reptile called Quet'zal'coat'lus; those Beasts will compete for dominion over the land. With the help of 'Lacey, ' the beautiful girl whom Angioni resurrects from the lacewing insect, the man sets to de-insectize, or re-humanize the 'insects' in the Garden. Will the Beasts let him? However, those insects aren't so helpless; the Wasps will swarm and take up the fight.