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Where is Manar? 2: "Sorry, Ma'am - This Body Is Not for Rent"
Chapter Twelve: A New Phone
"Sami, lunch!"
"Coming."
I woke up to Alaa's shouting. My body felt heavy, as if I'd been wrestling that "cursed cow" in a mud pit all night. My sleep problems were no longer just insomnia; they had become a war of attrition. The pathetic part was that as soon as I opened my eyes, my hand automatically reached for the floor, searching for my phone.
"Tsk... forgot."
I got up slowly. This time I didn't trip; I'd finally noticed that cursed fold in the rug. In the bathroom, the man in the mirror looked like someone who had decided to go to sleep but never quite decided to wake up. There was dried blood under my nose... for the third time in a row. Tsk... it seems the "cow" has started pressing on the blood vessels now, too.
I washed up and went downstairs. The smell of tea and fresh bread filled the air. The family was gathered in their daily, boring, safe ritual. Mom was talking to Dad about routine nonsense-vegetable prices and the neighbors. Alaa was explaining some scientific or philosophical crap to Manar that she didn't understand, and she just nodded with boredom while Professor Charles watched the scene with the dignity of a cat who knows way more than he should.
"Morning," I said.
"Morning. Sit down, lunch is ready," Mona said.
I looked at the wall clock. "It's two in the afternoon, Mom."
I helped her set the table, as usual. Finally, the "Era of Eggplant" had ended. It had been a cursed week in every sense of the word, but today brought relief. Yesterday, I heard Manar and Alaa protesting to Mom about why we ate eggplant every single day-it seems she decided it was time to lift the military siege she'd been targeting me with.
The TV was on in the background, broadcasting some news garbage that no one was paying attention to, but the words pierced through the clinking of spoons and settled in my head.
The newscaster spoke in a cold tone about "increasing cases." The rising rate of strange circles appearing on the bodies of the dead recently. They appear suddenly after death, like stamps of new ownership. Doctors claimed they were incomprehensible clots; people in the comments sections were screaming about curses.
"Nonsense," I muttered to myself as I attacked the food. After what I saw yesterday, are circles really the strange part? Consult the cow living in my head, then you'll know what "strange" actually means.
I sat down. Eating in this house doesn't require conversation; words just arrive like an inevitable fate... and here they came.
"Sami," Mona said, putting down her spoon. "I saw Maytham's mother today."
"Aunt Hind?"
"Yes. Son, for a moment I didn't even recognize her! Her face was radiant-she looked strangely happy."
"Good news, hopefully."
"Great news," she said, her eyes gleaming in that way that meant the news was about to shake the foundations of the room. "Maytham got engaged."
The spoon froze in my hand. Maytham? What the hell was he saying just hours ago? I couldn't even remember.
"Engaged?"
"Yes. He called them and told them. And the girl spoke to Hind on the phone. Her name is Emma."
Emma.
"And how is she?" I asked in a perfectly normal voice, while the "cursed cow" inside me started kicking the walls of my stomach.
"Well, Hind says she's well-mannered and has a real personality. Her laugh is sweet, she likes to joke. An employee from another province... and her speech is mature; she doesn't sound like some young girl."
Mature. Yes, a very accurate description, Auntie. A maturity that makes the Great Dog People leave Maytham alone. An employee, likes to joke, they're meeting her tonight. Yes... she definitely likes to joke, because this whole situation is hilarious-to the point of pure horror.
"And Layth?" Kamil asked. "I saw him on the road today; he looked active, smiling more than usual."
"Hind said he couldn't sleep from the joy."
Alaa suddenly looked up from his plate. "Maytham got engaged? Before Sami?"
A brief silence fell over the table. Kamil looked at me, Mona looked at me, and Manar stared at me with eyes that didn't understand the context but definitely felt the tension. As for the Professor, he opened his eyes as if to say: Go on, boy, you can do it. I'm rooting for you.
"Yes," I said quietly. "Before Sami."
"Hahahahaha!" Alaa laughed under his breath. "He betrayed you, Sami. Left you all alone in the Bachelor's Club. You need to get revenge, or you'll end up the 'only fool' in your group."
"Alaa!" Mona said warningly.
"I didn't say anything!"
In my mind, the thoughts were racing at terrifying speeds. Maytham is engaged to Emma-the woman who made the "cursed cow" reveal itself with just a few words. If she sits down with my mother and her sinister plans, they'll form a terrifying team. God help us, we're all finished.
Two happy families. Layth is smiling. Hind's face is radiant because Maytham has finally "settled down."
"Sami, aren't you happy for your brother?" Mona asked.
"I'm happy... good for him."
"Will you call him?"
"I don't have a phone. It fell yesterday and broke."
"Oh right, I forgot. I messaged him but it was off. Now I understand."
I finished my meal with the "monkey mechanism" I've been practicing since yesterday. Inside, one sentence kept looping: Maytham... oh, Maytham.
What a good dog you are. You left Dajja and the wolves behind you, and brought home a cosmic catastrophe just so she could call your mother and hand out sweet, gentle smiles over the phone.
"The girl's voice really comforted Hind," Mona continued enthusiastically. "She said there was something calm and confident about her."
Calm and confident. Exactly like the voice I'd heard for a few seconds before my phone exploded into ash. I don't know who she is, but there was something in her voice that made my body move before I could think... something I can't name, but I felt the danger of it in my very marrow.
"Good for Maytham," I said, getting up.
Mona looked at Kamil and gave him that warm yet threatening smile: "Your turn next, Sami."
"It's still early for that."
"Maytham said that too."
"Bless you, Mom... I'm going out."
I need to buy a phone now. I can't monitor the end of the world-between Iran and America-nor watch Maytham drown in his happy "engagement" without a touchscreen.
I stood up and walked toward the door.
"Thami."
Manar's voice came from behind me.
I turned.
She was standing in the middle of the living room, hands behind her back, her hair dancing like snakes. Her eyes were fixed on me in a way that signaled a request was coming.
"Yes, my flower?" I went back, picked her up, and gave her a few quick kisses.
"Whewe go?"
"To buy a phone."
She nodded with total seriousness. "Bwing one for Pwofethor."
I stopped.
"Bring a phone for the Professor?"
"Yeth."
"Professor Charles is a cat, Manar."
"He knowth."
I looked at Professor Charles, lying on the sofa with royal dignity. His yellow eyes stared at me with total calm.
"Professor, do you want a phone?"
Professor Charles didn't move.
But his look...
His look was saying something else entirely. It wasn't a "Yes, I want a phone" look. It was a "Who said anything about a phone? I want a wife. Bring me one" look.
I was standing in front of a fat Persian cat asking me to arrange his marriage.
"Tsk."
I turned to Manar. "Manar, the Professor doesn't need a phone."
"He needth."
"Why?"
Manar thought about it with scientific seriousness. "To call hith fwiendth."
"The Professor doesn't have any friends."
Manar looked at me with eyes that said, That sounds like a 'you' problem, not a 'him' problem.
I looked at the Professor again.
The Professor was still giving me that look.
The look that clearly said: You're also still without a wife, Sami. Which of us is truly more deserving of pity?
"Tsk."
I put Manar down after a few more kisses and put on my shoes.
"Sami," Manar said.
"No, Manar. The Professor doesn't need a phone."
"He needth."
"No."
"He needth."
I walked out the door.
I heard Manar behind me, saying to the Professor in a very low voice:
"He didn't bwing it."
And then I heard Professor Charles.
One quiet snort.
I didn't know what it meant-maybe he was saying, I expected as much.
Doesn't matter.
I closed the door.
I left the house at a quarter to three.
The street at this hour has its own rhythm; not the morning chaos, nor the evening hush, but somewhere in between. Cars passed without hurry, shop sounds drifted out, and the smell of bread from the corner bakery lingered even though they close at noon.
I greeted Abu Hussein, the grocer at the corner.
"Hey, Sami! How's the family?"
"Fine, thank God. How's your uncle?"
"Good. Where are you off to?"
"Buying a phone."
"Ah, did you break it?"
"It exploded."
He looked at me in a way that signaled he didn't want the details. "Well, good luck."
I walked on.
At the bridge, I stopped. The single staircase on the left side-an extra two hundred meters for anyone "wise" enough to use it. The Wise Man was probably asleep by now.
I crossed under it, weaving between the cars as usual.
On the bus, I sat by the window.
The driver was talking to a passenger in the front about something I missed the start of, but I caught the middle and the end, and it was all "theories." Government theories, Iran theories, pharmaceutical company theories-even a theory I'd never heard before about satellites and Basra specifically.
I looked out the window.
In the seat in front of me, an old man was reading a physical, paper book. In this day and age. Paper books.
I respect him.
"I'm telling you, they want to weaken the youth!" the driver said, looking in the rearview mirror.
He looked directly at me.
I turned my head to the window.
I wasn't going to join this discussion. I have an exploded phone, a problem with a feminist cow who doesn't pay rent, and a brother who just discovered that the Great Dog People are real. I have zero energy left for satellite theories.
"I think it's the Americans," a second passenger chimed in from the back.
"No, I told you-it's Iran," the driver countered.
"No, China."
"Tsk," I whispered to myself.
The driver looked in the mirror again. This time with a Why aren't you joining in? look.
I looked at the book in the old man's hand.
The old man felt my gaze. He looked up. Looked at me. Looked at the driver. Looked back at me.
He pressed his lips together in a way that said, I get you.
I nodded back at him.
I arrived at Al-Ashar. The noise here washes your brain of any logical thought, as if Basra decided to cram all its chaos into this one spot. Shops are lined up like crooked teeth, and every storefront displays glowing screens promising a better life-or at least a new electronic "banana."
I entered one of the shops.
Behind the counter, a man with glasses and a neatly trimmed beard looked at me with the eyes of someone who knows you'll walk out with something more expensive than you planned.
"I need a phone."
"Welcome, welcome. Take a look." He gestured toward the shelf.
Before I could finish, someone else walked in. Quietly. Stood right next to me. Looked at the shelf.
"Do you have the iPhone 16?"
The seller's eyes flipped from "ordinary customer" to "Golden Opportunity."
"Yes, I do! Come here."
What happened next... I don't know how to describe it accurately. I only know that the man next to me opened his mouth and didn't close it for fifteen straight minutes.
He started with the camera.
"This system gives you unbelievable resolution, every detail, blah blah blah." He started firing words faster than an automatic weapon.
Then the screen.
"And the screen! Don't even compare it to anything else... blah blah blah."
He kept firing nonsense...
Stop him-he's going to kill the cow in my head.
Then the battery. I want to go to sleep now.
Then the operating system. I'm sure he's about to say it's better than the Pentagon's.
In the end...
No one asked for my opinion.
No one even noticed I was there.
I looked at the seller. The seller looked at the customer. The customer looked at the phone. The phone didn't look at anyone because it was a phone.
Tsk... you lovers of the "Bitten Apple" system are truly complicated. You remind me of Miss Minchin.¹ I walked out of that cursed shop.
I entered one of the larger stores. The blast of cold air from the units slapped my face.
"Welcome, come in."
"I need an Android phone. Budget: one hundred and fifty thousand Dinars."
The seller looked at me with professional eyes.
"I have an excellent model, the camera-"
"I don't need a good camera."
"The screen-"
"The screen turns on; that's enough."
"The battery-"
"It charges and it dies; that's the natural cycle of life I expect from a battery."
The seller paused for a second.
He looked at me like I was a species of customer he'd never encountered in the wild before.
"Fine," he said, opening a drawer. "I have this."
I took the phone. Switched it on. The screen lit up. The buttons worked.
"How much?"
"One hundred and forty."
"One hundred and thirty."
"One hundred and thirty-five."
"Deal."
I paid, took the phone, and walked out.
In the street, I turned it on and waited for the setup to finish.
First notification:
A message from Ayman, sent yesterday.
"Sami, call me. It's urgent."
Second notification:
A message from Ali. "Where are you?"
Third notification:
A message from an unsaved number. "This is my new number. - Maytham."
I stopped in the middle of the street.
Maytham has a new number.
That means Maytham is safe.
That means Maytham is with Emma.
That means Emma has Maytham's number.
That means...
"Tsk."
I kept walking.
.....
Footnotes:
¹ Miss Minchin (Miss Manson): The true villain of the Sarah (Princess Sarah) cartoon, not the witch. An entire generation of children hated her with a passion, but we had to watch her because there was only one channel and no other choice. Some wounds never truly heal.