The United States of America is hit by the event, and it is an exploding country knowing how to direct its screams and its keenings.

The sky separates from the sacred flag; small as a button on a shirt, big the air almost cannot move it. It stirs slowly, as if in a gesture of sadness. The eagle has stitched his forehead. He has grown violently angry. The American eagle is authentic. In the photos the eagle appears to be a European migrant, white. The African eagle is not angry.

Arab Americans receive the first pages of the local newspapers in Detroit. They are sad, broken. They can see some of their brothers in the blood of New York. America under attack, America unites. America rises from under the ashes. God bless America, and don’t be distracted from other societies that need your blessing.

How stupid this man seems as he tightens his lips and narrows the wideness of his eyes. The eagle of chance. He has to appear an eagle in front of the lens.

God bless the President.

And don’t forget to bless my brother who came to America 24 years ago. My brother who in a faint of fright did not warn his modern brother, new to the States, that he has Arabic features that cannot be hidden to the eye.

God bless America. And don’t neglect the escapees of Lebanon’s dark tomorrow to a better tomorrow.

God bless America if He wishes. And bless the Arabs of Detroit who lifted their hands together at the instant of the 11th and implored You that “please God let those who did it not be Arabs.” 

God bless the firemen of New York, and don’t forget, Oh God, those who carry in their speech the shame of the accent. They also love you and need you in the foreign land, and bless, my God, my brother in Lebanon, because he dreams of coming to America, modelling himself on his brothers and most of his companions at university. My brother whom I have missed, bless him Oh Lord. God bless the stranger.

In the street, which is without an escape, the house number 14662 lies in a strange calm. The white old neighbour walks every morning. The old neighbour from South Lebanon does not walk every morning; she sits on her chair and perhaps retrieves her memories. The sound of the old white woman’s voice shrills loudly at us with the English greeting, and the neighbour from South Lebanon calls to us in her own dialect. She invites us to speak to her; she tempts us with Arabic dishes from her kitchen, which distances us if only for a short time from our scrappy meals. She returns us to our native homes before the street retrieves us once more. Sing Fairoz, my love.

God bless Fairoz because she has given birth.

And bless a light-skinned child with a scarf on her head singing the American National Anthem with abandon, tunelessly without an accent. And don’t forget a woman walking around the Stock Exchange, the flag covering her hair. And bless O God, the Red Indian and the ancient slaves; and the old woman from Southern Lebanon who has never known how to address her American neighbour, a nice old woman in spite of her noisy voice.

“To university.”

“Come back, all the universities have closed.” 

Everyone says unoriginal jokes involving my name, and searches among American names for a name, which separates me from the accusation of the original name. I don’t like any of the names. I love my name. And I won’t change it because someone else misunderstands it.

God bless my name. And don’t allow me to one day forget my name, because one of the worst things in the world is for a person to forget their name.

The hero is committing suicide in the first scene. It is not wise to omit the suspense and obscurity in a film in its first scene.

And I discover that Laura knows who Noam Chomsky is.

Laura writes in her paper that I have caused her to question what her country’s foreign policy has done, as well as sending planes into orbit. And I write in my paper that Laura has crazed the traditional picture I have of the entirely ignorant American.

Has Laura benefited? 

Have I benefited? 

Has the university assignment benefited?