Why Me?: Events and Realities out of a Multi-Universe of Possibilities

By Raad Chalabi PhD

The book Why Me extrapolates a concept, known to physicist as the butterfly effect, (which postulates that the mathematics of chaos theory implies that a butterfly fluttering its wings in one part of the world may cause a hurricane in another part) to explain how a simple incident in ones life can create a strange chain of damaging events.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris UK
• Release date: Jan 29, 2013
• ISBN: 9781479779819

Book preview

Copyright © 2013 by Raad Chalabi, PhD.

Library of Congress Control Number:       PENDING

ISBN:         Hardcover                               978-1-4797-7980-2

                   Softcover                                 978-1-4797-7979-6

                   Ebook                                      978-1-4797-7981-9

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

To order additional copies of this book, contact:

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Contents

1.   Introduction

2.   Interview with the Author

3.   Play I      A Question Too Far

4.   Play II      Whose Dog Shit Is It?

5.   Play III      The Illusive Birthday Party

6.   Play IV      The Wedding Invitation

7.   Play V      The Secret

8.   Play VI      The Best Man

9.   Play VII      Newton’s Backdraught

10.   Play VIII      Why Worry?

11.   Play IX      Too Many Photos

12.   Play X      A Parking Incident

Introduction

Ramiz Alkhishin is a grocer. He has a passion for a life that is as independent as possible from its surroundings.

You may have met him before in his books: Fortune Cookies, Sketches, The Bazaar, The Balcony, The Lobby, and The Tango of Gossip. The first five books are pictorial books in which short, sharp dialogues are employed to convey an idea or concept and entice the reader to ask questions about life. The sixth is a play in which simple dialogues, taking place in Ramiz’s grocery store, allows the reader to examine life through the eyes of others.

For those interested to know more about his earlier books, you are welcome to visit the website www.raadchalabi.net

In his new book Why Me? Ramiz explores the chaos concept, known to physicists as the ‘butterfly effect’, (which postulates that the mathematics of chaos theory implies that a butterfly fluttering its wings in one part of the world may cause a hurricane in another part), as it relates to humans.

The author does this exploration through ten short plays. Each play demonstrates how an accidental incident, and the subsequent human reactions to it, creates unforeseen and unexpected realities.

The book was inspired by something Ramiz heard from one of his grocery shop customers, Gladys Stone. She told him a story about her brother-in-law Mr Simon Frat.

According to Gladys, Mr Frat was walking proudly in his exclusive garden which is full of large and tall trees. Suddenly a big fruit falls on his head and injures him. He looks up at the tree, and with anger, he shouts, ‘Why did you hit me?’ The tree replies, ‘Who are you?’

Mr Frat answers, ‘I am the owner of this garden, you ungrateful squatter.’

The tree, with clear indifference, then says, ‘I did not know you were even standing beneath me. A fruit of mine was ripe, and I decided to discard it.’

‘But why now and why when I just happened to be beneath you?’ asked Mr Frat.

The tree, clearly now annoyed for being questioned that way, replies, ‘Do not give yourself that much importance, for I could ask you as to why you were walking just below me at the time when I decided to discard my ripe fruit. You have the option to be anywhere. I, on the other hand, have nowhere to be but here. So if there is any one to blame for your injury, then it is you!’

The man now seething with anger says to the tree, ‘I am going to go and get my chainsaw and cut you down. This garden and all that is in it is mine.’

He starts to walk very fast with blood flowing from his head, and as he does, he bumps into a protruding rock on the ground and falls down hard on his face, breaking his nose.

With tears in his eyes, he angrily says to the rock, ‘Why did you trip me like this, you stupid fool?’

The rock replies with surprise, ‘Who are you?’

Mr Frat angrily answers, ‘I am the owner of this garden, you worthless thing!’

The rock with complete indifference responds, ‘I have lived here, stuck to this land, and unable to move, for many generations. If there is a fool responsible for what has happened to you, then it is the one who has eyes to see and legs to move and yet is stupid enough to tumble on to me.’

Mr Frat now boiling with anger and with blood flowing from his nose and his head says, ‘I will show you who is stupid when I get my shovel and dig you out of this land and deposit you in a sewage canal so you can spend the rest of your miserable career swimming in dirt!’

As he proceeds to move towards the shed in immense pain, which is only dulled by the thought of the revenge he is going to take from the offending tree and rock, he steps on to a large rusty nail left on the ground. With blood streaming from his foot now in addition to all the blood flowing from his nose and head, he now starts screaming obscenities at the offending nail. The latter, not speaking the language, lay flat on its back enjoying the show.

At that point of maximum distress, a thought occurred to Mr Frat. He said to himself, ‘Are these really three separate incidents, or is it a conspiracy against me’?

He reflected carefully on this question; he concluded that because of his status and immense importance, what he just experienced must be a conspiracy of cosmic proportions to harm and discredit him.

He then said to himself but in a loud voice, ‘If it is a conspiracy,’ as he is now sure that it is, ‘I must not only punish the tree, the rock, and the nail, but I must also find and deal with the master conspirator.’

When Ramiz enquired from Gladys as to what Mr Frat did in order to find who the conspirator was, she replied, ‘Nothing much.’

Apparently the fruit on his head followed by the fall on his face resulted in a delayed brain injury; this coupled with the blood poisoning caused by the rusted nail caused him to die a few days later.

Ramiz then asked Gladys if she really believed that there was any conspiracy behind those events; she replied that she did not know. All she knew was that after Mr Frat’s death, his wife inherited the garden and sold it.

To Ramiz, the question Why Me? has a very simple answer: ‘It is never you in particular. It is just that an event occurs in your presence. How you and others react to it creates realities out of a multi-universe of possibilities.’

The book Why Me? starts with a few selected dialogues from Ramiz’s earlier books which become the foundation of additional flow of events. These in turn create new realities from what appeared earlier as a complete tale.

Reality, as Ramiz sees, is the instantaneous intersection between a history that no one predicted, and all the future possibilities, all feasible, but all yet to be explored.

An image of that ‘reality’ is that you find yourself suddenly standing on a pointed cliff. The art of life, at any instant, is how to balance one’s self on such a cliff and successfully stepping off it and unto the next of many possible new ones. These cliffs are indifferent to you, but you cannot be so to them.

Probably the only true answer to the question Why me? is the question Why not?

Interview with the Author

Journalist: Hello, Ramiz. How have you been? It’s nice to see you again.

Ramiz: Thank you, I am fine.

Journalist: What is your new book Why Me? about?

Ramiz: It is a series of ten short plays. The dialogue between the participants in each play highlights the random nature of life and the frustrations that ‘logic’ suffers as a result.

Journalist: Do you not think that life has a purpose?

Ramiz: We set targets to ourselves for the journey, at least some do. Whether that qualifies for the grandeur title of ‘a purpose’, I do not know.

Journalist: Many people who have strong beliefs would disagree with you and consider what you say is some sort of nihilism.

Ramiz: I have every respect for all beliefs that exist or yet to come into existence.

Journalist: But you just said that life is too random to comprehend.

Ramiz: Beliefs allow it’s believers to ‘jump’ from a cliff of the ‘known’ to the cliff of the ‘unknown’ without using the bridge of comprehension. I have every admiration for those who can.

Journalist: But should we not question the beliefs of others in order to ensure that theirs are not superior to ours and therefore are worth converting to?

Ramiz: It depends.

Journalist: On what?

Ramiz: Whether your questioning is silent or not?

Journalist: How can there be a silent questioning?

Ramiz: Read all that was written about that belief and reach your own conclusion.

Journalist: But you may not fully understand everything from what was written and therefore have questions that need to be answered.

Ramiz: Questions to whom?

Journalist: To those who preach that belief.

Ramiz: All you need to know about ‘jumping’ is that gravity will pull you down. In the context of what we are talking about ‘gravity’ is logic. The only thing of value that a believer, who has made the jump from the cliff of the ‘logically proven’ to the cliff of the ‘I believe’, can say is that the jump is feasible.

Journalist: How do I know I will be more tranquil once I made the jump or that I will not just fall in the void between the two cliffs?

Ramiz: I am the wrong person to ask about that.

Journalist: Who is the right entity to ask then?

Ramiz: Your mirror.

Journalist: But do you not think that non-believers need to be guided by believers?

Ramiz: The only thing that would cause you to believe in something is an inner thirst to do so, and the only way you would know you have succeeded is if that thirst is quenched. Nobody can drink on your behalf or tell you if your thirst is quenched.

Play I

A Question Too Far

A Question Too Far

Scene 1: The Incident.

Operator: Good morning. This is the Friendly Credit Card Company. My name is Irene. How can I help you today?

Caller: My name is Johnny Jones. I am calling to check my balance on my credit card.

Operator: With pleasure. Can you please give me your credit card number?

Caller: 226267322

Operator: That’s fine. I now need to ask you some security questions to make sure that you are who you say you are. It is for your protection.

Caller: Fine.

Operator: Your date of birth, please?

Caller: 17 June 1961.

Operator: Your post code, please?

Caller: W7 2NN

Operator: In whose name is your second credit card?

Caller: My wife Susan Jones.

Operator: The name of your mistress?

Caller: What?

Operator: The name of your mistress, please?

Caller: What kind of question is that? I do not have a bloody mistress.

Operator: I am sorry, sir, but I do have her name on my computer screen, and I need you to confirm it.

Caller: What name?

Operator: I am sorry. I cannot disclose that. It is for your protection.

Caller: This is crazy!

Operator: There is no need to shout, sir. I am only doing my job.

Caller: Lady, I am telling you I do not have a mistress.

Operator: Sir that is not what my computer screen says.

Caller: Let me talk to your supervisor.

Operator: Hold on, please, sir (Music from the film The Longest Day)

Supervisor: Good morning. My name is Fidel. How I can help you, sir?

Caller: I called to check my credit card balance, and your operator wants to know the name of my mistress.

Supervisor: Did you include her name in the security questions when you applied for your credit card?

Caller: Look, my problem is that I do not have a bloody mistress.

Supervisor: I am not sure how I can help you, sir. I certainly cannot provide you with one.

Wife (Suddenly entering the room): Why are you shouting, dear?

Caller (Confused): It’s nothing. Do not worry about it, dear.

Wife: Who is on the phone?

Caller: Not important, my love.

Wife: Give me the phone. (She takes the phone away from her husband.)

Wife: Who is this?

Supervisor: My name is Fidel from the Friendly Credit Card Company.

Wife: What do you want from my husband?

Supervisor: Well… you see, it is he who seems to want something from us.

Wife: What thing?

Supervisor: Well… he has his credit card with us and is calling us… Well… to ask us to provide him with a mistress.

Wife: Go to hell (Slams the phone).

Husband: Are you OK, dear?

Wife: What do you think? After fifteen years of marriage and three children, I catch you talking to your pimp from our home phone.

Husband: Look, it is all a big misunderstanding.

Wife: It certainly is. I am taking the children and going to my mother. Don’t you dare follow us there!

Husband: Do not be silly! I can easily explain all this.

Wife: Get out of my way.

(Wife takes her children and leaves the house.)

A Question Too Far

Scene 2: Humiliation or Frustration?

Mother-in-Law (Standing