This is actually a dream I had (so if any of the decisions in this seem stupid, that's why). I woke up and thought to myself; is this really how it feels to die? So I wrote it down, added detail, and posted it. Tell me what you think.
Allahu Akbar
The murmur sounded throughout the room, echoing across the beautifully sculpted dome, our voices going to the heavens then returning to us.
Allahu Akbar
We raised, then bowed again, then raised for the final time.
Assalamu Alaikum Wa Rahmatullahi Wa Barakatuh
Our heads, all thousand of us, synchronized together, to the right,
Assalamu Alaikum
Then the left. Talking began and the volume rose, now that our Maghrib prayer finished. I looked around myself. My aunt was next to me, my cousin and little sister on the opposite side. My aunt smiled down at me, and I smiled back, then looked for the Iman to make his speech. My family and I were in an elevated room, the walls miraculously crafted so we couldn't see anyone below but the Iman while we prayed. My uncle was somewhere up front in the same room, speaking with the men.
Slowly, everything turned quiet, and the Iman began his speech. I listened peacefully, enjoying the serene wave washing all over my people. I loved this, loved visiting Palestine with my family.
Suddenly, the atmosphere changed. All noises- shuffling, whispering, fidgeting- died down, the Iman froze, and my heart was gripped with a crazy fear. A women screamed, a babe cried, and I spotted men march into the Mosque.
"Quick! Get out! It's the Zionists!" my uncle cried, jumping up. The Iman's head was severed, my dear sister screamed, and my aunt and cousin led her out of the room, following the crowd running toward the exits. "Hide!" my uncle called to me, and I dropped to the floor, crouching in a corner, praying no one would see me up here.
And for a time, no one did. Chaos continued downstairs, but I was left alone. Only when most were out of the building or dead did a single man think to creep up into my room.
He came, with a long pole with a knife at the end, his body standing stiff, angrily, looking for one of us.
And he found me.
I could have stopped him, could have at least tried. It was what, one man? I knew I could stop him. But when he came over to me, my world blinded suddenly, and I couldn't see, so I rolled over and over, trying to nock him down. It worked for a while, but then suddenly we both knew that it was over for me.
The Zionist raised his knife and slashed my neck, and the deed was done.
Do you know how it feels to die?
It doesn't hurt, it's quicker than falling asleep.
You know how sometimes your foot falls asleep? This happened to my entire body, and then I fell asleep, asleep as quickly as if I had been drugged and blacking out. Yes, that's exactly how it was. In movies when someone sniffs sleeping gas, they go dizzy and blank then descend into darkness.
Dying was simply....peaceful. Drifting away into my past happiness, the dreams and hope for the future I had as a kid that had just been smashed down as I grew, seeing that no matter how hard I or anyone tried, we couldn't change human nature, couldn't change the world.
I remembered when I was young, how proud I was to be a Palestinian Muslim. I wanted everyone to know my heritage, and I considered myself fully Palestinian, not American, despite mine and my parents birth here. Maybe at the time, subconsciously, I did understand what a hopeless case America was, for I recall often begging my mother to move us to the Middle East. Perhaps I understood the racism towards us from 9/11, the ignorance people had.
One question always in my mind was this: Why when so many Christians have committed so many horrible crimes, were our entire race held against one person’s doing? Does he being, supposedly, a Muslim, make us agree with him wholly?
I did not know. And now that I was dead, I never would.
