On the occasion of the current catastrophe in the Middle East, we invited authors from the region to write stories, poems and essays in order to draw attention to a truth different from the "breaking news" from this region.

I rarely get home this late. A storm was threatening to hit the sea and, for a moment, it seemed to hang in the air. I put my hands in my jacket pockets and walked through the half-deserted town, ignoring the whistling wind, as if preparing to face the storm alone. I took a different route, one I hadn't taken in years. The street seemed narrower, with its dimmed lights and parked cars on either side. The slamming of wooden shutters against rough walls didn't scare me, and I felt as if I were sliding my palms over their dark roughness. On the top floor of one of the buildings, a single window was lit. I paused in thought, unhurried: should I go up and visit her?

I've always believed I had the power to time things and set them in motion at will. A damp wind blew, rustling the leaves on the trees, adding to my hesitation. I'm not used to my heart beating so fast. The visit to my friend had undoubtedly affected my determination and slowed my momentum. I sat down on the chair opposite him in the cramped hospital room. He was an old friend preparing for open-heart surgery. Before entering, I'd resolved to keep my visit brief, but in fact I'd stayed a long time without feeling any discomfort, even though the room was full of visitors. I took a seat by the balcony, thinking it would make my presence less obvious, and from my vantage point, watched the women who came to check on him. Each visit seemed like a new page in the book of his life. Despite the sadness of the situation, I found this amusing. I felt that even the healthiest heart can become sick with the realisation that grand gestures can come too late. Perhaps heart disease is the fruit of accumulation, caused by women who keep the heart waiting in vain. After the kind visitors had left, my friend told me that the bouquets of flowers - among which was a giant orchid - embarrassed him, and that he would be grateful if I could put them on the balcony and look after them properly when I left, because flowers, whatever the circumstances, must be respected. He added, sarcastically, that I could distribute them at weddings and keep the orchid for myself, as a gift from him. His gift made me a little uncomfortable: I was embarrassed by his kindness, and by our friendship, which, like that of the flower bearers, had also come at an inopportune moment.

Marie Tawk is a Lebanese translator and writer. She lives and works in Byblos, near Beirut.

Excited, I picked up the orchid and carried it out of the room. I remembered that Marwa loved them very much and always kept one in her living room. I thought of Marwa and her heart, which I could never have imagined would one day hate me. I wondered at my sudden affection for a woman I hadn't seen in years and whom I'd cruelly abandoned, despite her fragility. Would I now urge her to complete what she had started with me and which I had interrupted with a simple gesture? Would I rekindle her heartbeat? Would my arrow touch again the crimson pine cone nestling between her ribs? I no longer cared about her love. The love of another woman occupied me then; pleasant enough, as long as I could conquer Marwa's love with a single gesture, at my leisure.

I had a strange dream last night. I was completely naked under my coat, a shotgun in my hand. I was climbing a rugged mountain path I'd never seen before, hunting partridges. When I reached a clearing between the mountains, I was stunned by the strange sight of red-hued antelopes leaping before me, dizzyingly graceful under the moonlight. I raised my rifle to take aim, but found I had only a handful of arrows, without a bow. The antelopes began to run with a vitality that exhausted me. I picked up the arrows and began to throw them one by one in their direction, missing every time. The beast in me awoke, and I wanted to pounce on those proud antelopes myself, but they continued to leap majestically over the pale rocks in a provocative lunar dance. I woke up with a long sigh, exhausted from the chase. My wife asked me what was wrong, and I told her I'd just returned  from an unsuccessful hunting trip. She sighed, "More of your hunting dreams!" I told her this time was different, but she turned to the other side of the bed, uninterested in my answer.

I carefully placed the flowering orchid plant in our living room. My wife, who had to beg me to water her flowers when she went on holiday with the kids, was surprised by my sudden interest in flowers. "These are different," I told her, adjusting the stakes holding up the orchid stems. I saw Marwa's face looming before me, rosy and white, peering at me through the tender petals, assembled like a beam of spring light. Was her face still as beautiful as I'd known it, with that high forehead and elusive vivacity? Every time I stared at her, her gaze slipped away, her face bowing like a flower whose neck twists to hide its delicate petals. I grabbed her neck with both hands and lifted her face to contemplate. I open my eyes wide and bring my face as close as possible, but she looks away, laughing her nervous laugh. I remember her pink mouth and her expressions, but not her gaze. I remember her pink nipples and my insistence on pulling down her shirt to admire them. It was the pink lips and matching pink nipples that hurt the most when I decided to break up with her, nothing else. Yes, the whiteness of the body and the chiselled neck from behind.

She seemed to me to be a person melted in love, as I prefer a woman to be, but I'm only content to chase away those who show no piety or devotion, who show detachment and condescension after love-making. Those who take all they can from me and, once they're done, forget I exist and sink into themselves. I become a wreck, waiting for time to stoke my appetite again.
I liked to watch Marwa as she busied herself with small tasks, unaware that I was following her every move. She didn't know that, since our first meeting, I'd only been looking for the memory, the memory of her love for me. That I lived with her, near her, in front of her, behind her, as if she were a woman from the past. Was she so intuitive that she always looked away, as if sensing what her future with me held? I couldn't erase that look of hers, anxiety tinged with reproach, even though I knew very well the reason for it, even though I found it moreish.

The man who saw the woman in front of him with the eyes of the past sometimes liked to play the game of the distant future. I wanted to test my influence on her, through the years to come:

- Suppose I met you in forty years, in the same place as you are now. 

- Would I have to wait forty years before seeing you again? 

- What would our reunion be like? 

- I can't answer that. 

- Why can't you answer? 

- Because I always wait a little while to justify a call. How can you expect me to wait forty years when I can't even wait to hear your voice every morning and evening? 

- How do you think I'll look? 

- I think you'll keep your charm. Men don't age like women. Some even become more handsome with age. As for me... 

- No, your face will remain beautiful, full, with a slight flush to the cheeks. (I run my hand through her hair, gather it up and pull it back)  But your body, on the other hand, may become a little overweight. 

- I don't know about that. I don't think I'd have the courage to kiss you or even shake your hand after so many years. You approach me and I feel the weight of time. 

- Won't you welcome me with impatience? 

- With bitterness, perhaps. 

- Will you hate me one day, even if I'm far away? 

- What good will my love do you after forty years of separation?

 - Your tenderness will suffice.

I've always been seduced by these conversations, not just conversations, but the assurance of being able to approach her whenever I want. Tonight!

I was circling the building, looking for a sign, something to give me courage, before being hit by a downpour that seemed tailor-made for me. I ducked into the entrance of the building opposite to watch for movement at the lighted window. A car pulled up. I spotted the silhouette of a bald man getting out, obviously bewildered by what he was wearing. He walked towards me, towards the entrance of the building where I was sheltering from the rain. In his hand, he held a large bouquet of yellow flowers. A good omen, I thought, I'm not the only one out on this stormy night for a meeting protected by yellow flowers. The man took the elevator, and a few moments later, I saw him emerge, still with the bouquet in his hand. Then he disappeared into the depths of the dark street. It seems he didn't find what he was looking for.

The window above me is still lit. I wonder what the woman I haven't seen for so many years is doing. Surely she's learned something from the men she's known, from those who fleetingly crossed her life, but what do I really know? Does she spend her evenings in the company of a man? Yet I know she goes to bed early. Would she be with that tall man who always looked at her with an unpleasant expression? I'd warned her about him. Or with that other one, the one who was always lending her books and calling her for long afternoon chats, which drove me crazy with impatience? What if she was waiting for me? What if she'd always been waiting for me? What if, tonight, she sensed that I was close by and left her light at the window to help me find her? The wind picked up, and I pulled my shawl tighter around me.
I had told her I wouldn't change, that I'd stay the same. Yet she was still nervous, anxious, not understanding the depth of my fear that, one day, she herself would change, I told her I wouldn't change, but I didn't tell her why - not because I'm loyal, but because I see things through the eyes of the past, because I love the game of love more than love itself, and I love the hunt. Tonight, I'll aim for the lighted window above me. If I had called her before coming, I could have felt the pleasure of her heart racing as she imagined my possible arrival. I could have tuned her heartbeats to the timepiece of her life, but she doesn't know I'm waiting for her downstairs, and I find that strange.

I remember the year I disappeared while dealing with an inheritance, without telling her anything. Lying on the bed in my old room, facing the bay, the phone rang. It was her. I hung up immediately. And right away, I knew she was coming. I was afraid of her stubbornness, of her reactions, and I shared my fears with my friend, the one who is now preparing for his operation. He agreed to accompany me. I'd taken carelessness and cruelty too far: I imagined she'd come with a gun to shoot me. As soon as we spotted the car at the entrance to the building and got out to meet her, my friend told me I was kidding myself, because the woman waiting for us was softer than a summer breeze. Annoyed, I waved him off. His words had triggered in me that impulsiveness I know so well, the kind that makes me sacrifice my best friends. I didn't want him to get any closer to her after that.
I approached the car, disturbed by what this meeting might reveal. I had wanted it to be definitive. I thought now of my friend's words: had he, too, shared something with her? Did he offer her pleasures that I could never offer? These things evade certainty. I got into the car and sat in the back seat. Marwa turned around and asked me why I'd hung up on her. I replied that I was free to do what I wanted. My tone was tinged with vanity and arrogance, accentuated by the deliberate gesture of looking at my watch. The brilliance of the watch seemed to confuse the woman sitting in front of me. "New watch?" she asked. I didn't answer. "You never cared about the time, you never wore a watch before." I remained silent. I wanted to put my hand on her hair to comfort her, but I feared that touching her loose curls would break the barrier I'd built between us. I didn't dare. A single word could have soothed her pain. I confess, her pain broke my heart, not because I loved her - nothing was further from me - but because I remembered myself on the beach, in front of the only love of my life, banging my head against the rocks to forget.
I was seized by an irrepressible urge to touch her neck, bowed before me. It resembled that of those rare flowers that bend under the weight of their petals. I wanted to support that smooth, graceful neck a little. I kept my expression calm and confident, seeing it reflected in the car's rear view mirror. I found myself captivating and ran my hand through my hair, pulling it back, while she, head bowed, let out a sob of a purity and beauty I'd never heard. It was the melody of absolute pain, similar to my own past sobs. At that moment, I thought I'd come back to this woman one day, for her sob linked me to a past I'd thought lost. To win her back, I told her she'd lost some weight. I also intended to suggest solutions, such as traveling, getting married, forgetting... anything that might appease her. But I said nothing: I was fascinated by her tears. She ordered me to get out of her car and never show my face to her again. Yes, I'll get out. But not to show her my face again... That's another story.
I didn't see the car pull away. I turned my back, not wanting her to see me saying goodbye in the mirror. I didn't want to give her that fleeting consolation. Yes, that hand should have made a sign, however discreet, however inadvertent... but I said goodbye to my friend without breaking stride, wandering around the city without really seeing what was around me. When my feet were tired, I locked myself in my room, refusing to see anyone. Absorbed by the memory of my old love in front of the rocks on the beach and by this woman's pain, equal to her love for me, I felt a strange weakness come over me. I, who'd always drawn such clear boundaries for myself, felt an unexpected hesitation, as if a crack had suddenly appeared in the image I had struggled to build of myself. It was like attending a funeral that had nothing to do with you, but then the weight of a memory resurfaces in the midst of the mourning crowd.

My cowardice prevented me from slipping my hand into the woman's hair or taking her hand for a moment. Lying on my bed, the glow of my watch dazzled me; I removed it from my wrist, wanting to be true, if only for one night, to this pain I had witnessed and caused. Of course, it was a fleeting feeling, for in the morning I woke up in a good mood and recalled the previous day's events with dreamy pleasure, the pleasure of one who is always captivated by love without ever being able to give it or live it fully.

Now I want to console her. I'll place my hands on her face as I did before, increasing the responsiveness of her neck and the warmth of her cheeks, then I'll pass them over her convulsing shoulders, and when they obey, I'll have possessed her whole body. Once the wild desires have subsided, I will then be able to realise what I have failed to tame in her actions.

I wrapped myself in my shawl and walked over to the entrance of her building. A figure stepped in front of me and passed like an arrow. I followed. How ridiculous! It was the bald man with the yellow roses. Armed with my courage, I climbed the stairs of the building, when I heard footsteps coming towards me. It was her. I stood there for a moment, waiting to see the face of the woman I knew, hoping to rediscover the curve of her neck and her enigmatic gaze. From up there, she stared at me with an intensity that stunned me and left me frozen to the spot. I saw her neck, sublime as the antelope's in the dream, while my mouth opened, unable to let out the breath I'd exhaled the day before. She passed by me, turning her face away. I heard her footsteps continue to descend, and felt myself collapse on the steps. I'll wait for her, she'll be back, she can't leave me like this.
I woke up surrounded by men: I must have fallen asleep and been there all night. "We don't house the homeless here," said one of them. I was lying on the steps, my stomach rumbling. I got up, panicked, and ran after the antelope from yesterday's dream.