Thomas Wictor

I’m not much connected to the world anymore. Maybe I should say I’m not much connected to worldly concerns. What I long for is the ability to tread the air above the din. That’s a lyric from one of the best Led Zepplin songs, “Achilles Last Stand.”

It was an April morning when they told us we should go
And as I turned to you, you smiled at me, how could we say no?

All the fun to have, to live the dreams we always had
Oh the songs to sing, when we at last return again

Sending off a glancing kiss to those who claim they know
Below the streets that steam and hiss the devil’s in his hole

Oh to sail away to sandy lands and other days
Oh to touch the dream, hides inside and never seen

Into the sun, the south, the north, at last the birds have flown
The shackles of commitment fell in pieces on the ground

Oh to ride the wind, to tread the air above the din
Oh to laugh aloud, dancing as we fought the crowd

What a seductive song. It makes that leap into the unknown sound wonderful.

With each passing day I find it harder and harder to relate to the bees in everyone’s bonnets. People contact me with concerns that I find too alien to comprehend. My mind is on other things. It’s tough to marshal my ebbing resources.

When I first began writing about Operation Four Little Martyrs—the Hamas deception that claimed the lives of Mohammed, Ismail, Zakaria, and Ahed Bakr—a man who followed me on Twitter became obsessed with convincing me that I’d gotten the order of events wrong. He didn’t know why I believed Alex Marquardt of ABC News when Marquardt said he ran immediately from his hotel to the breakwater after he heard the two explosions.

Marquardt sprinted past the area in the sand where the bodies of Mohammed, Zakaria, and Ahed Bakr were later “found,” but there was nothing there at time. This alone is proof that the incident is a hoax.

My Twitter follower was very adament that I dismiss Marquardt’s account in order to preserve my “credibility,” but I see no reason to doubt Marquardt.

“How do you know he’s telling the truth?” my Twitter follower asked.

Well, he’s a reporter. He heard two explosions; wouldn’t he run to investigate? I asked my Twitter follower if he thought Marquardt sat in his hotel room for almost an hour and then suddenly ran to the beach. My Twitter follower got very upset and told me that I was ruining my big chance at…something. I couldn’t figure it out, and the man stopped writing me.

Two days ago he sent me a message about my debunking of Healing the Believers’ Chests, the fake Islamic State video that purports to show the burning alive of Royal Jordanian Air Force pilot Lieutenant Moath Youssef al-Kasasbeh.

My former Twitter follower said he didn’t believe my posts on Healing the Believers’ Chests, but then after he watched the video, he realized I was right. However, he didn’t think the cage was made of steel and aluminum because the two metals are difficult to weld together.

When I linked him to videos showing aluminum and steel being welded together, he wrote this.

Then he referenced a long e-mail I’d gotten accusing Israel of colluding with the Islamic State to create Healing the Believers’ Chests.

We were back to “How do you know?” I wrote that I didn’t know, but I post about things I see. There’s no evidence whatsoever that Israel had anything to do with this. Here’s what his messages devolved into.

This a stranger. People think that because I respond to them, they can then address me however they want. I told him that he was becoming belligerent, which was not acceptable. My advice was for him to stop reading my posts.

His response.

Like so many others, he got drunk and used me as a punching bag to work off frustrations that have nothing to do with me. What he doesn’t understand is that my most fervent wish is to self-destruct so that people like him will stop contacting me. Pierre Rehov sent a note showing that my Website is one of the most-consulted on the Internet. That was never my intention. I just wanted to be a novelist.

But it’s too late. I can’t self-destruct. Too many people—and now two cats—depend on me.

Have you seen Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome? It’s absolutely brilliant. I often feel like I’m living in a postapocalyptic world in which everyone simply chants slogans and is ruled by tribalism and campfire tales. The film has one of the most moving monologues ever given. Writers Terry Hayes and George Miller did a magnificent job of capturing the language and mindset of feral children left alone in the desert for years. The “tell” is the story of their lives that they recite to each other.

This you knows. The years travel fast. And time after time I done the tell. But this ain’t one body’s tell. It’s the tell of us all. And you’ve gotta listen it and ‘member. Cuz what you hears today you gotta tell the newborn tomorrow. I’s lookin’ behind us now into history back. I sees those of us who got the luck and started haul for home. And I ‘members how it led us here and how we was heart-full because we seen what there once was. One look and we knewed we got it straight. Those what had gone before had the knowin’ and the doin’ and things beyond our reckonin’. Even beyond our dreamin’.

Time counts and keeps countin’. And we knows now findin’ the trick of what’s been and lost ain’t no easy ride. But that’s our track. We gotta travel it. And there ain’t nobody knows where it’s gonna lead. Still and all, every night we does the tell. So that we ‘member who we was and where we came from. But most of all we ‘members the man who finded us. Him that came in salvage. And we lights the city not just for him but for all of them that are still out there. Cuz we knows there’ll come a night when they sees the distant light, and they’ll be comin’ home.

Though I see the distant light, it’s still out of reach. I’ve yet to start haul for home.