Finding Muna: A Palestinian Novel

Chapter Thirty Two

Muna's behaviour drastically changed over the next few days as if the reality of what had happened just dawned on her. She finally realized the phone call wasn't a dream and ever since then she felt like she was going crazy.

She would randomly get up at night and walk around, claiming she heard her mother's call – or she would sit alone for hours, talking and giggling to herself, and when she was asked, she would tell them her mother was talking to her.

She rarely ever spoke to anyone else other than her friends, and even her conversation with them seemed to be non-existent. She wouldn't say more than a few sentences and stop talking afterwards.

Her actions were driving her friends crazy, especially Lamees, it felt like all what was supposed to be the worry of three people were pushed onto her alone; she had to worry about getting them food daily, making sure they have somewhere to sleep, taking April on her daily walk, making sure Muna wouldn't go insane and make sure the next explosion would not hit them on the head.

She would burst into tears multiple times in a day, contemplating whether or not to end her own life, while she would be in the middle of her daily activities, everything was wearing her down, she was tired of having to go through everything alone and still expected to stand strong.

She felt like giving up too, she desperately wanted something to befall her as well, perhaps someone would figure out she's human too and needs help.

But every time she attempted to tell someone of her worries, she was always shocked to see that theirs was even greater than hers. And although she would feel a bit relieved, it wouldn't take away the painful feeling and slow resentment she was having towards her friends.

April was mostly frustrated than angry, she saw the effect of all of what was happening on Lamees and her mental health, Lamees looked extremely stressed out, and April was frustrated at the fact that she couldn't help her no matter how much she wanted. The most she could do was to hold in her own pains and try to keep Muna sane whenever Lamees was away.

April knew how each of her friends thought, and she would desperately pray that Lamees would return back to the camp alive whenever she went somewhere. She knew how tempting suicide can be in difficult times as she'd been through it and without any words concerning suicide from Lamees, April knew she was seriously contemplating it.

April's worry was majorly on how to talk Lamees out of hurting herself, April herself knew there was no motivation to stay alive anymore, instead of things to get better, it only got worse and she herself knew it was only a matter of days before one of them falls victim to the undiscriminating air missiles.

She just wished all what was happening was a total nightmare, she wished she would wake up from the bad dream before an Israeli air strike kills her and her friends, but no matter how hard she pinched hot slapped herself, she just never seemed to wake up from the dream.

Tears were long gone from the trios' eyes at this point, they never cried again no matter what happened, they just tried to suck everything in and move on, however painful it might be.

April was sitting with Muna who was just giving her a blank look while Lamees went in search of what to eat for all of them, April was trying to engage Muna in a conversation, smiling with her and asking her random questions while their neighbours went about their lives.

Suddenly, everything seemed to stop, as almost everyone heard the screech of the van that drove into the camp, hitting children and babies as it made its way in. April's eyes widened at the sight of a van which seemed oddly familiar, her mouth was hanging open and her heart began to hammer against her chest.