Lee Rourke - The Canal

I cannot begin to describe the joy I felt when I first detonated my rudimentary device. It was in London Fields behind what is now called The Pub in the Park. I forget what the pub was named then. I remember lighting the fuse and running away. The anticipation of the explosion was like an itch deep within me — completely unreachable. It seemed to take an age, but I knew not to run back to it. And then, taking me by complete surprise …

BANG! … The thing went off. It was the birds fluttering out from the trees above my head that startled me more than anything. People came out from inside the pub, too. I kept running, all the way home without looking back. When I got there I ran all the way upstairs without acknowledging anyone. I turned the TV on in my small room and hid under my duvet. I was convinced that the police would be knocking on my door at any moment. I don’t think I slept that night, at least I’m not sure I did.

The following morning, quite early, I returned to the spot where I had detonated the crude device. My heart was beating, my palms sweating. I thought the police would be waiting in the foliage to pounce on me. To my amazement the explosion had left a small crater in the soft earth. I stood over it. I gasped. Red entrails and fur were scattered around it, the last remnants of a grey squirrel that had been cut down. It looked like it had been blown to smithereens. Either that or a fox had devoured it in the night. Even though I knew it was wrong I began to laugh, even though I knew this image of the dismembered squirrel would haunt me for the rest of my life it was still, up to that point, the greatest feeling I had ever experienced. I felt real. Like I had achieved something. Now, years later, it sickens me, it leaves me numb, like I can’t breathe.

“There’s something that’s been worrying me about all this …”

She spoke these words to me slowly. Ever so slightly our cheeks touched, glanced, her skin as soft as a peach, warm — as I had imagined it to be. It was as if I’d known her all my life. It was if we knew each other inside out. This closeness will never leave me.

“What has been worrying you?”

“There’s something about them …”

“Who?”

“…”

“Who?”

“…”

“Who? You can’t just say that to me and stop!”

“Suicide bombers …”

“ Suicide bombers ?”

“Yes, suicide bombers. There’s something about them …”

“What do you mean?”

“There’s something about them that affects me, touches something inside of my … deep inside of me. I can’t explain it, I can only begin to tell you about it.”

“What do you mean?”

“They … excite … me.”

When she said this she was so close to me her wet lips brushed against my cheek like a kiss. It sent a shiver so intense down my spine that I thought I was about to collapse. I was sure she wanted to kiss me, to hold me, to be solely with me. It felt like I had finally witnessed the reality of her, as if everything had been configuring towards this moment. It hadn’t, of course, but I didn’t know about that. I was trapped. I was convinced it was meant to be — that moment, those very words, that closeness, that physical closeness we were experiencing at that most naked of moments … And then I began to think about what she had said to me and it began to leave me cold. I had listened to that word: excite , with all its connotations. It rankled deep within. I didn’t know what to do, I didn’t know what to say. I sat there with her cheek, her lips close to mine, her breath caressing my face, the humidity of it causing the shiver within me. My body was paralysed and completely static. It took the greatest effort to move an index finger. I dared not move my head. I dared not move my face away from her. I wanted to stay like that, for that to be it, for nothing else to ever happen again. Absolutely nothing.

It’s funny, life. Up until that moment I never thought I’d say something like that, let alone think it.

She became silent for some time.

It became hard for me to think of something to say. Nothing would have sounded right at that moment. I was truly empty of everything except a desire to fuck her with everything within me: every cell, every drop of blood, every ounce of oxygen fuelling each and every muscle. I wanted it so much. But I was completely powerless to make it happen. I truly was.

I looked up, momentarily alerted to something in my peripheral vision, up by the iron bridge and the Banksy graffiti. I’m sure it was a fox with a rat in its mouth. But it couldn’t have been, as it was broad daylight. I didn’t know much about foxes, but I was positive they kept a low profile during the day. But there it was, up by the iron bridge, running with the rat between its sharp teeth without a care in the world. I’m sure it was a fox.

“Why do they excite you?”

“It’s hard to explain …”

“But surely you must have some idea?”

“The majority of suicide bombings are often carried out with the aid of a vehicle — a truck, a van, a car … or a civilian aircraft, for instance. But sometimes the suicide bombing is carried out on foot — a simple explosive belt attached to the bomber. When the bomber sets off in either their designated car, van, truck … whatever … when they attach their explosive belt and set off towards their pre-planned target, they are transformed, they are extraordinary … They are pure machine.”

“But they excite you?”

“Yes … I’m … Yes, they do. They have something we don’t …”

“What?”

“They defy death, whereas we fear it. They embrace it with open arms. For me there is something real about that. It is purely that, coupled with their use of technology and machine, that excites me. I think of them often … I stare at their faces … I watched the footage of 9/11 over and over and over again when it happened … I still do. It was such a beautiful image — I feel guilty for saying, for thinking this, but I can’t help it. Every time I see those images, or any footage of a suicide bomber, I feel … I feel shivers of excitement running through me.”

“I don’t understand that, for fuck’s sake … Watching those moments of massive death and destruction over and over.”

“I’m not asking you to understand. I’m asking you to listen.”

“I don’t think you should tell me these things …”

“I’ll be the judge of that. You know it’s a common misconception that all suicide bombers are poor, that they come from impoverished backgrounds. This couldn’t be further from the truth. Okay, those who detonated themselves in London were predominantly working-class, but they weren’t poor. Most were educated, too. I often think about them. I often watch the news reports I recorded, the CCTV footage of them. Those extraordinary young men. I often dream about them, their brown skin. I speak to them in my dreams, I caress them in my dreams, I fantasise about them during the day. Am I a sick person for doing this? Should they be on my mind the way they are?”

“I don’t know what to think. People think the strangest things. We all wake up from dreams that make no sense to us from time to time …”

“But these dreams make perfect sense to me.”

“Oh … I …”

“You know, the majority of these suicide bombers show no outward signs of psychopathology. Most people, those not involved, have no idea of their intentions. It’s no surprise to me that their relatives and friends are apoplectic when they find out. But my dreams … They are increasingly sexual. But not pornographic, if that’s what you’re thinking. Just a tangible element of sexuality is involved. I touch these men, their bare skin, as they wash, as they prepare. I touch the explosives, I’m there during the bomb-making process. I help them put it together, I help them fit it into the rucksack, I help them put it on. I caress the material …”