A Painfully Boring Curfew

This curfew thing is killing me. I'm so bleeding bored. It's as though I'm dragging a heavy black cloud around the house. I still don't have much of an appetite because of the fit of diarrhea I had a couple days ago. Last night, I realised that the diarrhea was caused by eating too many of the berries my mum picked from the garden. Those berries are great laxatives.

My feeling sick has made me ever pickier when it comes to what to eat, and in addition to that my mum is still making funny concoctions. When one's joy for food is gone, life can indeed be miserable. Ah but there's booze... haven't run out of that yet, and quite on the contrary to my eating appetite, my drinking appetite is doing rather alright. The one good thing about this curfew is the amount of electricity we're getting, perhaps about ten hours most of which after midnight.

[Several hours later...]

I had forgotten I was writing a post. So the curfew's to be removed tomorrow, which is a great relief. As a class, we've decided we'll skip college tomorrow just to make sure things have really settled down. Nahida's sister who works at the airport will give us a call tomorrow morning in case there's a flight that my mum could hop onto.

A little earlier, the house suddenly began to feel warm so I took a shower. After I got out of the shower, I noticed my mum wasn't inside the house and I found her sitting on her own on the patio enjoying the breeze. She was sleepy, her torso was wobbling back and forth and her head shifted it's gaze suddenly in different directions, kind of like a chicken does. And as I watched her, I was gripped again by the idea that my mum's getting old. But she was sleepy and I don't think she's going to turn senile like grandma anytime soon.

I can remember the first time that thought of her getting old struck me. It was back in 1996, I hadn't seen my mother for perhaps two years and she had come to Baghdad for a visit. She had just got off a long coach ride from Amman. As I saw her smile at me, looking tired and frail from her long trip, it made me feel sick inside, and the idea of her getting old still does.

Now I'm trying to think of what I'll do tomorrow. One thing I must do is get out of the house. There must be someplace nearby I could go. If I don't come up with any ideas, I should at least take a walk to the shops to buy a pack of cigarettes.