and from the inside in

Right after finishing his story, my father burst into laughter. I distinctly remember his laughter. It wasn’t bashful despite
his shy-looking face, his narrow eyes, and his lips, which his habit of smoking had rendered blue. I thought he was
handsome, like a statue Michelangelo would carve or a pilot who had rescued people from a fatal plane crash.
The statue of the Beauty and the Gazelle was plundered about a year ago. First, she was shot at and, after a few
months, she was stolen. Hence, the Park of the Gazelle developed into an ordinary park, indistinguishable from any
other you would find in Tripoli—a park without flowers but brimming with the random ideas people get, based on what
they think they remember about the scum that meandered around it in happier times, which have faded into oblivion.
My first girlfriend emigrated with her family after the revolution spread. Her father had been engaged in some dirty
business with the former government, and that was the last I heard of her. I haven’t spoken to her in years. The day my
father returned home, all sad and sullen because of the gloomy news he had just learned concerning the theft of the
statue, I thought of her. I imagined her laughing at the way I used to flirt with her, with my worn-out pick-up lines, before
starting to weep over her current situation. Afterwards, I recalled the manner in which I used to stroll around the statue
on my way to meet her. I was scum as well but the kind able to smile when going on a date with beauty.
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