A Human Story

I have always had a very bad memory. It’s usually quite a curse when one can’t remember the subtle details. But that isn’t what has haunted me on my lonely bed for the last 952 sleepless nights of my life. It’s the great accuracy and sharpness of the images from the day that seem to have acquired a permanent presence behind my eye lids. I wish I could have said that I remember it all like it happened yesterday. Not quite my prerogative. I live it every day. I see it happen all over again, time and time again. My eyes flash with the red, yellow and orange light that managed to enter them through the thick grey smoke. My lungs still endure the strength with which the fumes had filled them. My nose struggles to overcome the scent of burning blood and skin every time it sees a flower or kebab on the roadside. My skin sweats from the heat everyday that it had felt almost three years ago. My ears yearn for a silent moment devoid of my six year old daughter’s shrieks, calling for her mother, whose scent she could still follow through the flames that she walked into. Every part of my body, of my existence – my mind body and soul, are tormented every second. I am entrapped by my destiny to relive a day as if it repeated itself.

The days when the three of us sat in the village courtyard pass before my eyes like a rusty film-strip. I can still feel the excitement surge through me that I always felt while talking to my daughter. Her glistening eyes told me she would live a bright future. I always told my wife that I know we have a very special daughter. My father had sold 70 sheep so I could finish my secondary school. And I was a hopelessly stupid character throughout my primary years. It’s a shame that that’s all he had then. I promised myself the day my daughter was born that I’d sell myself and the land my mother’s grave was on if it ensured that my daughter could go to the city and become the first girl to get a job in a building in the city, instead of living the rest of her life with cows and chicken. We loved her so much. Her smile was what drove her mother and me through thick and thin. She loved her mother a lot. And of course, why wouldn’t she. I remember the time she fell sick and my wife carried her on her back to her brother’s tribe twenty six miles away on the other side of the mountains, on foot, the closest place where the Greek herbal dispensary was.

My wife collected firewood from daybreak to sunset while I tended to the apple orchids. Life was good. Our daughter already knew how to read the scriptures as we sent her off to the mosque everyday to study with her other friends. I used to give the kind priest a basket of apples at every harvest as he never asked us for repayment.

Our problems began with the coming of the guests. I don’t know where they were from. I met them in the tribal meeting once. The chiefs told us they were Muslim. That’s enough for us. If a Muslim brother comes to the land of our fore-fathers they are our honour and responsibility. Our guests come before us. We starve to death ourselves but never let a guest go hungry. It was a matter of dignity, the chief said, and I understood. But they also told us that they came here running from the infidels, who might follow them into our village. Of course, I was shocked to hear that. Could they dare to do that? I was prepared to give my life just like everyone else if anyone from the outside dared to touch our protected. If they so much as got a scratch, what standing would have remained of us amongst the tribes? I used to see them all the time in the mosque. They were very God-fearing people. I always wanted to go say something but they didn’t understand me. They spoke a strange tongue. I don’t know if it was Arabic or Persian, but the only people who understood them were the students in the mosque or the chiefs. I heard they planned to fight invaders they were awaiting. It began to greatly worry me. The last time we broke into a fight 62 people died from our tribe. I was beginning to think of moving to the city and sending my daughter to a school.

That morning, I was coming back from the field when the sky began to shake. I still remember the green, blue orange lines that split the sky as they flew over the mountains. They were machines that could spit fire and make scary sounds. I had heard of how they threw bombs over the border in Afghanistan, but I never thought it would look so scary. It reminded me of the judgement day that the priest always talked about: The sky splitting with a noise and fire coming down from above.

My heart stopped beating when I saw the balls of fire falling from the sky onto my village. I ran as I had never run before. Our entire neighbourhood was on fire. There were shrieks everywhere. Dust clouds had filled the unpaved streets as dust from the shattered mud houses rose higher into the sky. I heard people firing aimlessly into the sky as I ran towards where I thought my home was supposed to be. The smell, sound and blinding dust or the fact that I couldn’t breathe didn’t stop me running towards the fire where I struggled to find my wife or daughter. I don’t know if it was my brain playing tricks on me or if it ever happened, but I think I saw my daughter walk through the smog into the fire crying for her mother. I wanted to jump into the burning rubble myself but fell unconscious. I don’t remember who saved me.

I was sick of it. The smell, sound, repeating images, the sky split asunder, my world shred into thousands of pieces. I have been sick of seeing everything that had ever mattered to me turn to dust, ash and abstract cries right before my eyes. I wanted to end it. I could not even pray anymore without loosing my breath. I had to bring an end to my suffering. I did not have a place to live. My loving wife had burnt to death and turned into ashes with our little princess who never grew up to become anything while I cried my eyes out, sitting over graves that were as hollow as my soul.

Today was the day I got to the green city – that’s what they liked to call it. They built it in their own nice mountains, not like the desert ones we have, these were filled with trees. There were big roads with even bigger cars. My village told me this was where I could take my revenge. They sat in warm and cold rooms in buildings that talked to the skies above. They speak our language and look like us but they survive on our innocent blood. I had waited for this end for such a long time. Now, my life would at least not go to waste after being robbed of every reason to live. I had never been so calm ever before, how I felt when I stood there in the middle of the tall building with blue glass. Where everyone wore English clothes and spoke with posh accents; where everyone had a full stomach and a broad smile; where no ones children were naked or dirty; where they all had lots of money to waste because they had no worries. I smiled over them and I asked myself how they could deserve all this after leaving me in so much pain. I had seen more then I could understand. Perhaps I could find an answer very soon. I whispered to myself, “there is no god but God”, and I pressed the button.