Solomou 33 :The Hovel of Suleiman (And the Algerian Flag)

Sadly inspired by real time events

Solomou 33 or the hovel of Suleiman, the sobriquet I used to hide my novelist persona. Scared I was on the first day I stepped into that flat: proud and maimed with wounds more esoteric than physical. I left that flat after a quick prayer, Qur'anic recital, and an eye wide open to see the elapsed year that started with fears and ended with spears, for no unjust reason other than the dark, destructive nature of the human soul. I'd rather be fucked than live against the principles I almost died for several times through my books. I was fucked in the back with a fake Glock on my head that pushed me to rethink my life in an instant and killed my heart, knowing that I'd done well shaping all these books. But after the books comes a life of tales that dictate themselves in accordance with the words once shaped; those latter become the manifestation of the life of their author, yet at times, we lose control.

I lived in that flat with two additional rooms that hosted two flexible roommates from various nationalities. The majority were splendid folks; some, in respect to logic, were not. As I put my words and energy in motion in that house, I attracted folks on the same frequency as my state of mind. At my peak, the house soared in divinity; at my lowest, and during my latest months, I was stuck with the blue or white paper. Eventually, two Scorpios, one from France and the other from Venezuela, landed in, and from that moment, this tale started.

Of course, in humility, I’ll never write to proclaim that I walk this earth as the messiah with no faults. Most of the tragedies that occur in our lives are mere karmic results of our previous sins with previous folks, or a potential projection of sins inflicted on us by others (Sins of Algiers bears witness to this theological morality). In calmness and isolation, and in a serene state of mind, others, motivated by their demons, will perch on a calm life, inflicting their shadow on the light of the soul that they see and potentially envy.

My relationship with these two roommates was very enjoyable at the beginning. Yet young, I was told by my stoic father that the best folks we meet are the ones who appear rigid at each first encounter. A joyful visage hides a dreadful soul who walks upon God's soil with ignorance of the pain they’ve caused to others; a melancholic visage is always in awe of the destructive nature of the human soul. In short, chaos was at my door.

The French young girl, as she arrived, saw me as a role model. Already finished with my studies and with a record of seven books, she was my disciple, and I nurtured and protected her in duty. Yet what I did not expect was that she was influenced by my dark shadow, a mere façade that I harnessed and controlled for the sake of survival in Athens. Eventually, she started tattooing herself every week, everywhere across her body. Sketches that reminded me of Coraline, lurking me into a universe of Jack et la mécanique du cœur. Of course, she had attraction towards me, but my heart at that time belonged to someone else. A polite decline that seemed like rejection hurts the feminine ego and pushes it to do its best for the sake of approval or submission. I felt busy with other things rather than lurking in a romance. Having mastered Quantum Jumping, I can see the scenarios of potential romances and the eventual damage that I do not wish for, gratefully. Despite that, our friendship was great, especially due to the fact that I grew up immersed in French culture and have always had great artistic connections with French people in general.

As days passed, another roommate invited herself. I was smothered by the fact that I was living with two girls who projected their emotional needs upon me, whilst I simply endeavored to keep my privacy and universe intact. Having merely returned from a failed trip to Lille, I ignored her for several days until she fled that room, disappointed at not being able to befriend a writer. Instantly, the room became available, and a sneaky Scorpio invited himself in. My house was a hovel for broken, savage, curious souls, and I had to keep my rich literary universe intact.

This lad was from Venezuela, craving weed and women, a vivid simile for a broken soul in his forties. Being able to read people as soon as they spoke, I did not trust him and started envisioning moving out as soon as my dear psychologist warned me. But a few days were not enough to flee the damage that third world countrymen can cause (being from that herd myself). I let my guard down, realizing that he too came from an ex communist country with no GMOs (as Algeria). Yet his country was entirely broken, mine was, and still is, rising in global power.

A few days passed by and my loss of trust was replaced by tiredness. Motivated by my Tunisian coworkers, I moved to my friend’s house gradually and silently, knowing that I do not owe any justification for any move that protects my serenity, my inner peace. It is easy to lead a sinful life, but there's nothing to boast about when your acts are mere instruments to benefit your ego. However, I had some inner empathy for the French roommate and told her that I was moving out from the house for inner and secretly higher purposes. Her attachment and my sudden departure motivated her Scorpio instincts to seek revenge. I forgot that Scorpios fear abandonment, yet I assured her that we would remain friends and that I’d continue being her protector and best friend.

Being in the middle of moving out and with an invitation to a Sufi live performance, silly me, I also forgot that my acts, despite their theological morality, would motivate revenge. It was then that chaos commenced and a round of metaphorical knife stabs to the face started, and a novelist’s rage was about to emerge. Victoriously? There’s no victory or defeat, for it was merely human nature.

In my absence, she got close to the Venezuelan, who had no intent toward her beyond sex. Yet a man motivated by his sex force toward mere physical beauty is a potential tool for manipulation. She manipulated him against me and used him as a tool for revenge. Two days before my departure, I invited her for a cocktail under the scorching sun of Exarcheia. She informed me that she told the Venezuelan about my departure and that he was interested in taking my room. That paused my kindness, and, facing a valid casus belli, I entrusted my rage and shouted at her in public for betrayal. It was a noble anger, yells that made Exarcheia bend to the silent, mysterious Oriental lad who never uttered a word in public. As her heavenly father, I atoned her for her sins and maneuvers that I wanted to avoid. Cognizant of the powers of my inner demon, I tried to remain calm distinctly, but all was in vain. I turned from the protagonist of my tale to the antagonist of her self reality.

Spending my nights eating spicy red sauce with meat for the sake of growing cunning malice and furthering my crimson intellect, I decided to sublet the remaining days of my room to a random Egyptian gangster, a mystical intoxicated Bengali, or much worse, an undocumented Algerian. As my rage faded away with the sight of her eyes, I decided to leave this all behind and to simply move on with my life as the wisest choice.

Two days passed, and my Sufi performance equipped me with ample karmic energy to protect my higher self effortlessly. Skimming, not skipping, work, I finished my day in the company of a Tunisian colleague who wanted to sell his phone. We went out calmly and sold it in Metaxourgeio for a generous price. I received a message from the Venezuelan roommate asking if he could take my room, my anarchist room that shaped a whole book. My Algerian pride was higher, and my legacy couldn’t be concluded with a treacherous tale. I declined politely this time and went back to my place with my colleague for a simple conversation.

At the moment I opened the door, I found a half naked, drunk Venezuelan guy ready for a fight. He started punching walls and threatening to kill me. I tried to calm him down, having returned not for a fight but to talk him out of it. It was pointless, as he was motivated by a Lilithian soul. I fled and left that room with the help of my colleague and went home, traumatized. I called my friends and sought advice. All of them were distant, yet enraged about the distance. One of them, the most ruthless and the closest, saw no other solution for this dilemma than to bring out my inner demon and motivate me for revenge. Thinking I had no reason to return, I remembered, I left my Algerian flag in that room.

There was no way I would leave behind my Algerian pride. Despite my weak physical strength, I amassed my bravado and decided to return to that room and fight back, as my ancestors did.

On the morning, glad, I retrieved my friend’s two dogs, fed my Taurus self beef meat, and started amassing my strength. My loss of fear was replaced by a suicidal explosive self. Two dogs, two gangsters, and I returned to that room with a hammer, and we knocked him down instantly without abuse, as he did not lay a hand on me. I still had respect for his cross and decided to put him down, ordering him never to stand up again. We took the Algerian flag with quiet reverence, as if it were a holy relic forgotten in enemy territory. Then, without skipping a beat, we started talking about football, Gas prices, and whether beef is better grilled or stewed. Our Algerian selves had reawakened in the heart of Athens, not through poetry or diplomacy, but by doing what Algerians do best: turning chaos into comedy, and violence into anecdote.

Two days later, as if karma had a flair for irony or a taste for slapstick, I found myself in bed with a Venezuelan girl. Life goes on. The bruises fade, the soul gets patched with couscous, and we pretend we were never scared. What happened in that flat, dogs, hammers, a half naked lunatic, and an Algerian flag, was, in the end, nothing extraordinary. It was just another Tuesday in the Algerian tradition of poetic overreaction.

I didn’t boast. I didn’t feel heroic. I felt like someone who had simply collected his belongings, including national dignity, and handled the situation with the same grace one uses to haggle over tomatoes in a souk. The fact that it required gangsters, dogsreinforcement, and a theatrical act of dominance is just part of the choreography. In Algeria, a fight is often just a badly timed conversation.

And so, after all that, I walked out of Solomou 33 not as a victim or a victor, but as an Algerian writer who had retrieved his flag, defended his peace, and, most absurd of all, somehow ended up making love to someone from the same country as the man who tried to kill him.