Frankenstein in Baghdad

by Ahmed Saadawi

They all dreamed something about Hasib. Parts of one dream made up for parts missing in another. A little dream filled a gap in a big one, and the threads stitched together to re-create a dream body for Hasib, to go with his soul, which was still hovering over all their heads and seeking the rest it could not find. Where was the body to which it should return in order to take its place among those who live in a state of limbo?

death gives the dead an aura of dignity, so they say, and makes the living feel guilty in a way that compels them to forgive those who are gone.

There are laws that human beings are unaware of. These laws don’t operate around the clock like the physical laws by which the wind blows, the rain falls, and rocks fall down mountains, or like other laws that human beings can observe, verify, and define because they apply to things that recur. There are laws that operate only under special conditions, and when something happens under these laws, people are surprised and say it’s impossible, that it’s a fairy tale or in the best case a miracle. They don’t say they’re unaware of the law behind it.

People are deluded and never admit their ignorance.

They had died because they wanted to die,

They’re accusing me of committing crimes, but what they don’t understand is that I’m the only justice there is in this country.”

They have turned me into a criminal and a monster, and in this way they have equated me with those I seek to exact revenge on. This is a grave injustice. In fact there is a moral and humanitarian obligation to back me, to bring about justice in this world, which has been totally ravaged by greed, ambition, megalomania, and insatiable bloodlust.

“Because I’m made up of body parts of people from diverse backgrounds—ethnicities, tribes, races, and social classes—I represent the impossible mix that never was achieved in the past. I’m the first true Iraqi citizen,

there were three types of justice—legal justice, divine justice, and street justice—and that however long it takes, criminals must face one of them.

Anyone who puts on a crown, even if only as an experiment, will end up looking for a kingdom.”

maybe he would wake up one day to discover that there was no one left to kill, because the criminals and the victims were entangled in a way that was more complicated than ever before.

“There are no innocents who are completely innocent or criminals who are completely criminal.”

every criminal he had killed was also a victim. The victim proportion in some of them might even be higher than the criminal proportion, so he might inadvertently be made up of the most innocent parts of the criminals’ bodies.

“Someone inspired the creation of this creature to stop crimes before they happen. What’s the point of predicting where a crime is going to happen when you can wipe out the criminal before he becomes one.”

“Nothing in me lasts long, other than my desire to keep going. I kill in order to keep going.” This was his only justification. He didn’t want to perish without understanding why he was dying and where he would go after death, so he clung to life, maybe even more than others, more than those who gave him their lives and parts of their bodies—just like that, out of fear. They hadn’t fought for their lives, so he deserved life more than they did.