Is Tomorrow Going to Be a Normal Day?

Thursday, 3:12 P.M. local time
And there we go again. Something is going on around the Arabic University (Which one I don't know, there are several divisions in town). We don't know what. Something. Listen to the news, they say.

It's the usual stuff again. The cell phone network blocks (because everyone is calling each other), parents block the entree to the schools because everyone has come to pick up their children in person (too dangerous to leave that job to the bus driver now), all plans for the rest of the week have been put on hold (who knows what tomorrow brings?), and we go home, wondering if tomorrow is going to be a normal day. Or even tonight? And so we sit and wonder. What will happen tomorrow? Will the fighting spread? Is it serious? What about school? Is the neighborhood going to stay safe? Can I reach my work tomorrow?

"Yeeeh, are they not ever going to let us live in peace," a colleague complains as she tries to reach her son. "He's in town to buy a phone, maybe he doesn't listen to the news."

Another colleague walks in. "Three dead already in Cola (a neighborhood in West-Beirut). They are fighting with heavy guns, machine guns."

Who's they? They don't know.

Are we slouching towards a civil war? Michael Young says we do (Daily Star columnist). It is a pretty interesting column. Especially since he wrote it before today's skirmishes.

Jamal says there will not be a civil war this time around. "If I'm wrong you can shoot me," according to Jamal. Jamal, I'll buy you a flack jacket.

Time to go home. School's cancelled for tomorrow. Curfew's installed until 6 o'clock tomorrow morning. For the moment.