The events in this text took place in the right side of the brain of the writer; a pure random and imaginative act. Any resemblance to real events, characters, names, and places is a mere coincidence.
The text is inspired by the film "Dr. Strangelove" by Stanley Kubrick.
A Hot Sunday in June
The public
-Did
-No sir, it is a jellyfish sting. But this Jellyfish is huge, almost 1.3m in Diameter with long tentacles stretching over 2m ahead. I have never seen a creature like that before. The girl answered with tears and pain.
The doctor tried as much as he could to heal the wound. The girl in yellow bikini left the hospital with a limp.
Three hours later, as the doctor’s shift was about to end, and as he was ready to leave, three cars stopped in front of the Emergency doors with seven patients coming out with the same exact burn!!!…
Horror in the streets
Within the next two weeks following that first jellyfish incident, one hundred people were hospitalized. Eleven of them are in serious conditions, while one young person is dead.
The local and international media, the schools, the taxi drivers, the families at home, the Facebook freaks; everybody is talking about the Jellyfish invasion.
Michel Hayek was surprised that he didn’t predict that tragedy coming, although he did speak about possible political assassinations taking place!
And the shiny summer that started as a haven for tourists from the entire Gulf, began to look gloomy and full of danger. The hotel reservations were dropping like autumn leaves. The beaches were arid. The economy, which is %98.7 based on touristy donations, was plunging into another crisis. The situation was catastrophic.
The politicians
The politicians were forced to react, urged by the growing sense of discontent within the public opinion. During the National Truce & Reconciliation meeting number 112, they agreed to switch from the Defense strategy & Hezbollah arms to the Jellyfish attacks.
They requested a civil investigation to be provided within 36 hours.
Two days later, the report was ready and they met again. The report allocated the jellyfish area in one condensed zone that spread over 5km along the shore and 2km deep into the sea. They listened to Sea Experts giving reasons for such huge jellies:
-With the artificial expansion of our Consumer Society, the explosion of the number of malls & supermarkets, the opening of Vero Moda & Moustache every 25 meters, and the absence of waste water treatment facilities, plastic bags were being dropped abundantly into the sea, and turtles were eating them and chocking to death: They are confusing them with jellies. An expert wearing brown glasses explained.
One politician asked:
-Can’t the sea turtles differentiate between bags & jellyfish?
The room was silent.
-Why are they so big then?
-Respected Sirs, the existence of the rich monumental and fruity Jabal of Zoubaleh near the city of
-What is the solution? Another frustrated Member of Parliament shouted.
-Without the turtles, I don’t know sir. The lady with the brown glasses answered.
The meeting continued for three more hours. At the end of the day, they didn’t agree on a common basic & simple solution or procedure.
In this limbo, troubling disagreement, and loud angry public opinion that crave for a solution, they all agreed on a very original idea:
Why don’t we let the Army take care of the Situation?
The Army
The commander of chief, the chief of staff, the deputy & generals met within 24 hours to respond to the urging call of the Politicians.
The generals quickly thought in their heads without any hesitation:
Why don’t we bomb the Sea?
Everybody agreed to that logical & natural strategy. They highlighted, on the bombing maps, the 5kmx2km area between Jiyyeh & Rmeileh. They called the Air Force, the navy and all field military experts who were in high command during the Nahr El Bared war.
The Air Force artillery
The Air Force quickly released its latest air weapons:
-The “Dove”: Its full name is De Havilland Dove. It was used by the British army in WWII as a military transport plane.
-The “Bulldog” Aircraft: A very good training aircraft from the 1970s.
-The Aerospatiale Puma Helicopter: It comes fully loaded with machine guns & canons. It appeared in the movies Rambo: First Blood II and III.
-The Cessna Caravan: It is the latest acquisition; a gift from the most powerful army in the world. It has the lightness of a gazelle and the aggressivity of a tiger. It is the Phoenician Bird in the sky and out of the ashes.
Cessna has been used by FedEx and DHL for the past 15 years…
The Action
After two and half months of continuous bombing of the sea using up to 350,000 rounds of soft-tipped bullets, and two hundred and fifty-five tons of small American-pre-approved-missiles, the results came as follows:
- 300 tons of fish was found dead on the shores. The fishermen organized a strike that almost toppled the government.
- 250 tons of sea corals were spread on the shores. They were quickly crushed, mixed with concrete and used for another land refill around the
As for the Jelly fish extermination, there was no guarantee for the success of the strategy. The army failed to count the dead Jellyfishes since they do melt when exposed to the sun.
The end
The army was victorious.
Despite two pro-jellyfish-Hippy-Hamra-candle-solidarity-action-demonstrations funded by ten local NGOs where five people showed up, the people were happy again, the beaches were full again, and the tourists came back again.
Then, towards the end of September, the Al Jazeera Network receives a written Email message. It is a press release from the Head of the Jellyfishes: “We are not dead, we will sting again.”
Two days later, the
To be continued…
