Hollow Fires: Part V

“When I Googled, I read that white supremacists kinda glommed onto Nietzsche. He’s all over their websites. Some of his stuff is even used...kinda like a code word or a secret handshake. There was an article about some bookstores seeing increased sales of his books recently.”

“Wow. Rich racists like to read so they can be educated about their bigotry, huh?”

“So, Nate quoting that phrase could be a coincidence or not. And the text Jawad’s parents got? That’s gotta be an outlier, right?”
“Outlier?” Asma asked.
“It’s already a bit of a stretch to link Nate to the mosque note, even if he was in London over break and blurted out the same words in class. I mean, there’s no proof he actually sent it. I guess it would be circumstantial evidence, but barely, right?” I asked.

“This is breaking news. I can’t believe you buried the lede!”

“Thanks, but I think I’m going to wear that kurta pajama I wore last Eid.”

He’s so lucky you even deigned to go with him.

We don’t have any real evidence besides Nate blurting out a phrase and being in London and having a BFF who sells Adderall and wears fatigues.

He had clips of Caspian terns and cormorants soaring high above the park and patrolling the lagoons.

And he went off on how the purposeful release of peregrine falcons into Chicago had decimated the bird population.

But on these videos he was relaxed, engaging, and chatty; he even cracked bird jokes.

On a whim, I decided to check to see if the library had any books on Nietzsche.

Our philosophy section wasn’t huge, but I grabbed a book called Existentialism for Dummies and a musty-smelling volume with a worn gray fabric cover that looked a hundred years old: A Brief Introduction to Nietzsche.

Perhaps more than any other philosopher’s, the works of Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (1844–1900) have been open to widely disparaged interpretations and debate.

Nietzsche believed that such supermen (his opinion of women was anti-feminist and even misogynistic) must constantly be questioning within a kind of solitude: Why do I exist? Why do I suffer?

While some of Nietzsche’s work appears contradictory, his views are often interpreted as anti-democratic, anti-labor, and anti-socialist while espousing a proto-fascist ideal.

He often made racist, classist, anti-Semitic remarks and was intrigued by a caste system where the upper class exhibited clear superiority over the lower classes.

However, at times he denounced nationalism and widespread scapegoating.

The will to power was adopted as a fundamental Nazi Party tenet, which Hitler expressed through military might, political power, and the extermination of those he deemed inferior.

However, even those who attempt to rectify supposed wrongs to his name concede that Nietzsche held reactionary views on women, egalitarianism, democracy, and racial equality.

However, even those who attempt to rectify supposed wrongs to his name concede that Nietzsche held reactionary views on women, egalitarianism, democracy, and racial equality.

At this point, we will pass along this case to our Runaway Interdiction Team, who will be investigating it under their auspices.

Among his fellow students at Bethune High he came to be known as Bomb Boy, a moniker he apparently disliked.

Calling this space an entry hall was almost a misnomer; it was bigger than my living room.

I sat on a red satin settee (as Asma’s mom called it), scrolling through my phone for more info about Jawad’s kidnapping and the text his parents had gotten from him: Sorry mom and dad. I'm okay.

Then Usman was almost arrested last year at a rally against America’s refugee policy and the internment camps at our border.

I bet you two are true crime buffs. Listen to a lot of podcasts?

“Wow. Could he have been any more condescending?” I asked. “He wasn’t even taking notes. It’s like Usman predicted—that cop was trying to turn it around on us.”

We get cops coming to our mosque, asking us to rat out nonexistent terrorist sympathizers, but were white Christian congregations being surveilled and asked the same thing about white supremacists?

I was a giddy teen rom-com cliché, but with more panic and terror churning in the mix.

I brooded. A lot. And yelled at myself for being TSTL, too stupid to live, my biggest complaint about fictional characters doing ridiculous, illogical things.

I’d end up implicating Rachel, too, which I obviously would never want to do.

I didn’t have the attendance data for the day, but I knew that both Nate and Joel were at school, since I’d spied them making snide remarks as some ninth-grade girls passed through senior hall.

Basically, Hardy’s draconian rules had destroyed the concept of breaking news for the Spectator.

“I’m okay with my camera phone, but I usually—”
“You’ll be fine. I switched it to manual and set the aperture and shutter speed. Hold it as still as you can. You’re editor in chief; sometimes you need to wear more than one hat.”

There was a stark beauty to Chicago winters, emphasis on the stark.

It was quiet, and some leaves scuttled by on the street as if they had tiny legs of their own; some were plastered against dirty mounds of snow.

We ambled toward my home, him holding me close, holding me up.

I close my eyes and try to imagine the smoke in curlicues wafting up from the incense and remember how warm and safe my home always felt.

My stomach lurched, and bile rose to my throat.

I ran to the curb and dry-heaved into the gutter, my entire body convulsing.