mehdi naïmi, artist and art therapist, lives on Vancouer Island, BC and dreams of travelling to Sri Lanka from time to time.

Nine hundred died here. There was no one on the beach now. The moon was half-full and growing. We had to pass among some shacks and shelters where there had been houses before. Two men on old bicycles warned us to step aside in the narrow alleyway. They passed between us towards the ocean. There was a bonfire somewhere between the dwellings and I could see shadows moving quickly on the walls. A few words were spoken loudly. Two bicycles were left on the path as if in haste, one stood while the other one lied on its side. The rubble of the former houses had been used to make an uneven path among the palm trees to the beach and much of it had been piled up in a long line along the beach, a constant reminder of what there was before. A new motor boat and an old wooden one with an outrigger lied side be side on the dry sands. The waves were strong and the beach fell with a steep slope towards the water. The moonlight moved swiftly on the waves like a bright silver snake. We took our sandals off and walked on the damp sand down closer to the water. It was soft and strangely sinking in parts. In the dim light of the moon I could see things that I could not recognise; maybe coconuts, or driftwood? There was a small pink flip-flop half-sunken in the sand. The waves crashed loudly at a comfortable distance to our right but suddenly surprised us and came up to our knees. A yellow light shone on us. It moved in a half circle like the beam from a lighthouse, but it was only a little distance from us further up on the sands. As the light turned away from me I could see silhouettes of a few people and a faint outline of a motorcycle. Young men out on a stroll at night, playing an innocent trick on strangers, trying their hand at frightening others.

Fear is the gift that is passed on from hand to hand on this island of Sri Lanka. It is passed down from powerful men and women through the barrel of the guns to every man and woman. It is passed from men to women and from them to every child and from them to dogs and others. Fear turns the economy, the politics, the history and the geography (even nature seems to give the already powerful a helping hand with its disasters from time to time). You can see it on the face of every child, like a mask with frozen eyes and mouth that will not reveal the person. There is so much hidden in that frozen place where the true self has no expression, where happiness has no song. Fear turns in and turns out, like waves that crash on the shores all around and lull the populace into a hypnotic state where rice and coconut are sought after and dreams are caged. Wild dreams are tamed with arrack, the smooth fire that burns the skin inside that dares to feel. Cravings are quashed, and the frustration fuels the rage. The wheel of fear keeps turning.