al-majus

I struggle to keep up with the speed that global tragedies are hurled at us these days. There is simply no time to process every devastation or threat of devastation, so they get filed away into a rancid cupboard in my psyche, only to resurface later in some other unholy way. Panic attacks, altercations with friends and relatives, a bit too much wine with dinner, a bit too much smoke after dinner, oversleeping, or else not sleeping at all, the occasional visit by the dreaded, silver-dappled Night Mare.

Last night, a hairy little incubus galloped into my dreams on a mushroom cloud. Chaos in the streets as people tried to rush for shelter before an incoming nuclear attack; my mother in the passenger seat next to me bleeding from her nose and mouth, telling me to leave her and save myself (of course she would say that). This is not the first End Days dream I’ve had since the Doomsday Clock was set to 85 seconds to midnight, the closest it’s ever been in its history. I’m certain it won’t be the last.

The headlines may have moved on, but the blood-soaked threats of complete civilisational annihilation that were planted in the collective subconscious of Iranians and other half-sentient human beings around the world earlier this week aren’t just going to disappear because negotiations with a delegation of conniving mass murderers whose word is as about as reliable as a chocolate samovar are currently underway. POTUS’s genocidal “truths,” the resignation of UN representative Mohamad Safa in late March over planned nuclear strikes on Iran, and BBC articles that seek to normalise the idea of nuclear warfare, are still very much there in the recesses of our imagination, shivering and growling as the Empire sharpens its teeth before the next round of crimes against humanity.

written by Alaleh Mohajerani

first published on Substack on April 11th, 2026