Frankenstein in Baghdad

by Ahmed Saadawi

He remembered a single phrase and repeated it to himself. The phrase caught his imagination. He took out his digital recorder: “Be positive. Be a positive force and you’ll survive. Be positive. Be a positive force and you’ll survive.” He repeated the words several times like someone obsessed, until he noticed that the batteries in the recorder were dead.

If she asked Father Josiah, he would tell her to ask for forgiveness for Abu Zaidoun—she never would. If she asked God or Saint George the Martyr or the ghost of her son, they would tell her she didn’t need to ask forgiveness for Abu Zaidoun. She was fully entitled to seek revenge because it would strengthen her faith and give her ailing spirit the energy it needed to keep on living.