In Beirut

Yona is tied to the bed by his wrists, still wearing his tags. Mina is smoking a cigar by the window, wearing only her underwear.

In Beirut: screaming children bleeding from burned and ruined faces, modern jets smashing medieval streets to shreds, an evil sky choked-up by thick black acrid smoke; all this is invisible. In the West: an eloquent commentator who has learned how to lie - and with a disabled daughter he loves and supports unconditionally - decries terrorist violence in a satellite newsroom.

Mina would like to castrate Yona, and feed it to him. In a way, Yona wants this too. But she does not do this – rather, just keeps looking sadly out the window, and Yona continues to feel sick with shame.

The room is hot and dusty. Mina drinks some water, and gives Yona some, and watches a cockroach scuttle across the floor.

In New York, I swallow three hundred sleeping pills, and slit my wrists in the bath because my lover has left me. Briefly, and fitfully, sinking into hot water cooling, I dream about some day in the future, the country house of some leader, long since retired, and now without security, with a knife against his throat, and then a short sharp swipe across his neck: we do not forget. Somebody calls an ambulance, they arrive in time, and I spend the next two weeks recovering in a private hospital, paid for by my parents.

In East Hastings, a summer cottage is hit by lightning and catches fire; it burns to the ground in a matter of minutes, killing a respectable couple. In Beirut, Mina takes off Yona’s pants and sucks on his cock, and then fucks him in his ass with her fist.