If you invite pain and suffering into your life, they will come running. Don’t invite them, just deal with them if they come.
Djinn had seen his mother raped. In the kitchen, near a chair. He’d been young, a child only, watching wide-eyed and unmoving. When their business was finished they left. He’d run to her, held her, cried as she cried with him, on the tile floor. This was long ago.
He stands by the window on this French suburban street. He is in the town of Malakoff, next to Paris. A car goes by at a slow speed, two smiling children in the backseat, their mother driving responsibly. Djinn rubs at his eyelids.
Over in Beirut he had the sounds that helped to mould him. The familiar floating noise. Here he feels unmoved by it, the music of daily life, taking nothing from the French cars, voices, bird calls. He wishes he could block them out.
He has been living here a month. It is the second of October 2003, and he feels like he’s been here forever. The days are long and tedious. He has tramped the streets and consulted maps, pinpointed useful locations. Has surveyed the site many times. He has looked from every possible angle, calculated distances, ascended often as a tourist. The Tower of Montparnasse.
He knows it like a body part.
On their buses he stares out the window. On their trains he looks straight ahead. He ignores their old people, their words, their sinful immoral girls. He prays. On the streets his tension hurts him, muscular folds tightening in the shoulders and the back. He stretches his joints in the evenings.
Once a woman asked him the time. He acted like he hadn’t heard her. If he caught someone’s eye he would glance at the floor, or away, anywhere. It made his head sore. The weather was harsh on him also, filling his soul with anger and fear. Making skin crack.
He reads from his Koran and recites his prayers turned eastward. He eats silently. To control a plan one must control oneself, and this can only be done by adhering to routine. If a bird sings audibly he denies the occurrence, struggling to banish the memory of a simple, once pleasant event. The tea they sell here distresses him.
The clock is ticking on and the time is fast approaching. Patience will offer reward. In the gathering of material and the straining will of same, he senses something massive, far beyond his scope. French cars, French people, French steel and glass and skin. All will crumble, melt, burn in holy flame, just like a prophecy. Djinn feels tired suddenly.
He lies on his bed and stares at the ceiling. There is a crack with an insect upon it. The creature follows the line of the fissure, almost exactly, creeping upside down with no knowledge of the world. Djinn follows the creature with his eyes.
He will sleep later, dreaming of death. To dream of death is important. It means his heart is pure, his mind focused, his soul is free from fear. It means his will will carry him. He has to die too of course, in the building he will light. His soul must mingle with the others. He turns off the lamp in his bedroom.
Fishing in Beirut 
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