My eyes flung open to a sudden pain that erupted in my head. I was laying among piles of rubble and debris, my back resting upon a chunk of my house. As i cleared my thoughts and they stopped being about wether I was dead or not I began to look around me for any signs of the opposition.
Soon enough, I realised that it was pointless as my sight couldn't extend further than the bomb ash that floated in the air. Beyond it, I could only see a silhouette of the house's door laying on the ground. The same door that I came through holding my new born brother, the same door I came through after my first day of school, the same door I came through all those times before the war.
Other than the ringing I my ears, everything was silent. I lay in the eerie silence, staring at the cracks in the ceiling. My eyes followed them for what seemed like forever. For what I wanted to last forever. My eyes followed back into my memories, ones with my friends before they moved away.
"Come out, come out wherever you are," I said, a childish smile plastered on my face. I heard a giggle behind the far away tree. I took off running to the tree my bare feet brushing along the soft grass of the park. I began to pretend to ride a horse, holding my arms out in front of me as though there were a reins. "Neigh!" I attempted to make horse sound effects, I heard her laugh again, making it more obvious where she was.
I pretend to tie up my 'horse' to a close bush and then mimicked yielding a sword. I puffed out my chest put my hands to my waist in a heroic manner. "I have come to save my princess!" I say in a deeper voice.
I hear yet another giggle, closer this time. I peak behind the tree trunk and see her leaning on the trunk as if trying to melt into the tree.
"I FOUND U!" I said as my hand reached towards her shoulder. She took off running among the trees making me chase behind her until we both tripped over a broken branch.
Despite the fact that I was lying in broken chunks of what may had been my bedroom, everything seemed peaceful. A peaceful-ness I hadn't felt for a while and wouldn't feel for an even longer while.
I just lay there, letting my thoughts free from the cage that they had been in prisoned in. The prison of sadness and eternal fear. After the adrenalin of the past few months, it was beyond enjoyable.
I noticed a piece of string lingering to the side of my eye. I turned my head to see Baba's oud laying above my head. I brought my self to sit upright and dragged the oud closer to my chest.
**
"Please, Baba, pleeease!" I whined. Baba, sighed and waved me off dismissively as he continued to strum. "Fine! I'm going to run away in the night and take it with me!" I said while crossing my arms.
He chuckled and motioned for me to come. "Yalla, you want to learn, right?"
I jumped up and down excitedly and sat down on his lap. Baba, rolled his eyes as he laughed and began to put my fingers in place. A smurk slid across my face as I got up and began to pretend to strum. I shook my head up and down, my hair flipping wildly as I moved. I continued to pretend to be a rockstar until Mama comes in.
"Ah, habibi Mustafa is a musician" She sighed.
"I want to, I want to!" Youssef whined. Soon we were all laughing at my rockstar impression.
**
But my peaceful memories didn't last long...
I quickly began to haul myself from the ground, my muscles crying with the pressure. My eyes started to water, I don't know wether it was because of the ash or something else, but I dragged myself on towards the sound. My note book, now rusty and scratched, still in my numb hand.
I walked through the ash cloud. My ears began to pick up sounds of parents screaming in pain and children crying in fear, in the distance. The sound of the coughs and gasps for air began to become sharper and I finally saw the silhouette of my brother bending over my parents; they were next to each other, my mother's head rested next to a chunk of the roof.
Tears were rolling down Youssef's cheeks, his hands shaking uncontrollably. I kneeled down beside my brother and rested my hands on my mother's shoulder, but she didn't flinch. She just lay there. Limp.
Baba had been slammed into the remaining of the side of the house. A deep cut was visible right below his shoulder blade and his shirt turned a dark red from the fresh blood that was still pouring from the cut. The man that rested on the side of the house, wasn't the same man who led peaceful protests hoping for a better country to live in. The man who was pale in the face, he wasn't the same man who gave his only share of food to those who didn't have any. Baba looked weak and feeble laying in broken parts of the town he grew up in, laying among the pieces of the house that was passed on from generation to generation.
I put my fingers to both of their pulses. My stomach lurched and my heart skipped a beat, my throat went dry and my knees buckled...
