Waiting To Be Bombed

28 - September - 2024

For almost a year now we’ve been hurt and confused by all the massacres and blood and death in Palestine, we’ve been confused a lot, daily life wasn’t livable, and nothing was doable.

Now, Lebanon. For almost a week now the Lebanese people did not sleep, bombs all the time, and two nights ago I heard most of it all night. 

I wondered what I would do if the bombing reached Syria. what am I going to do if we’re in the streets with nothing but our bodies if we were lucky to maintain all parts of them? Who do I want to be? Definitely helpful. Definitely human. 

For years I’ve been screaming and struggling to find the right path for me to being a good person. Being a good person; the principle I care about the most since and until forever. I remember all the scenes and reels I’ve been seeing in Palestine since October 7th, and one thing I know I want to be doing like the young man, Mohammed Idrees, who’s been killed while singing with displaced children to rise above the sounds of bombs, in a strike on a hospital in Gazza. 

To me, that’s an actual application of what Elif Shafak said in the words of the architect Sinan: “I cannot prevent the world from being demolished, all I can do is continue to build”. 

I know very well that I’m weak at the knees with the bombing sounds, no matter how calm I am; my legs can’t hold me standing. By now it must’ve become normal, right? I should be able to move normally, I’ve lived in it long enough, but no. 

My legs still tremble, unable to hold me. I feel ashamed of that while there are people working and studying in these conditions. 

Walking down an empty road at 10 pm in my beloved Tartous, listening to my ethereal Sufi poetry, I looked up at the starry sky for a couple seconds before hearing a sound. I wondered whether it was thunder or helicopters, so I walked quicker to reach home dry. 

Seconds later, I heard a bomb, then helicopters again. I knew that night wasn’t going to be a lovely one and I’d better be spending it with loved ones, but my legs were collapsing against my will. 

My heart didn’t skip not even one beat, but my legs were like they’re not mine. I had no other choice but to keep walking, and I fully did so. 

For the next 15 minutes I was in the streets walking alone with trembling legs, shame, and a smile. 

I couldn’t control the shaking but I could convince them to walk while they shacked. I couldn’t stop the shame from rising, and I didn’t want to, but I could use it to move my legs and continue walking. And I couldn’t help but smile; the peace I was in was from another world, if my trembling legs didn’t ruin it. During these 15 minutes my thoughts were clearer than ever, one of which was about how I viewed martyrs at wars since I can remember. 

Technically, the Syrian uprising began in my first year at school, and automatically the word “martyr” was mentioned frequently among the children, acquaintances and relatives. I can’t remember when I asked about its meaning, nor do I remember who I asked, but I remember that its first meaning in my mind was “People who die in wars fighting for their land”. I also remember that whenever I heard someone was martyred, I would imagine myself in their place.

How do you think they felt? I often tried to imagine myself in a heavy suit, full of sweat, dirt, or cold and pain, carrying a heavy weapon, and all that ran through my mind was to kill the person in front of me because he was wrong, and to be ready to die at any moment because I was right. 

The idea of ​​killing another person used to disturb me with my entire being, it would come back and dominate my mind whenever I heard that my schoolmate’s uncle was martyred, or the son of grandma’s best friend and neighbor - my auntie whom I loved so much, was in the army.

Total chaos. On the battlefield, hiding among the bushes so that the enemy does not see me, waiting for him to come. But why? Isn't he a human being like me who fights for reasons similar to mine? Doesn't he have a family like me that he wishes he could return to and spend the evening with them complaining about the lack of everything? Isn't he a human? Isn't it enough that he is a human being for me to deserve to be tortured all my life just thinking about harming him, let alone killing him? But I have to. I have no choice but to fight. If I do not kill his enemy, my companion will kill me.

But isn't this the time when I should stand up with my principles? Isn't this the time when I fear nothing and befriend death instead of an enemy and an ally killing each other and each of them wishing he had not? Why can't I talk to the guy I wanted to kill?

Days passed, and this disorder continued to dominate me in all aspects of my life. I was afraid to form an opinion or make a decision. I would be like a man carrying a rifle who is forced to fight in ranks he does not want, not for fear of death, but for fear of life after death. He tries to evade and wishes to be killed before a single bullet is fired from his weapon. At the same time, he battles his conscience, which tortures him with his children and family, who love him dearly, all of whom hope that he will return to them, so he does not know what to do.

I think back to when I was in the village, the place that was safe no matter what happened outside until one month ago. I was getting ready to sleep after a long day of being a farmer. Grandma and Grandpa are already asleep, and the moment I put my head on the pillow the bombing starts, they’re asleep and even if they’re awake there’s nothing they could do. My legs start trembling again. That was the first moment since Damascus that I’ve heard bombing that close. And that was the first time my legs shacked like that since then. That night I realized that nowhere in the world is safe from the madness of humankind murdering each other and treating each other like diseases. 

Violence is never the answer, and the sound of logic and wisdom should be leading our world, not the sound of greed and selfishness. I can’t change the world but I want to try, at least I’d spend my life doing something I think is right. I’m now not scared to fight for my principal and speak up that I aim and want peace in the world. That we should learn to listen before we speak, and that we should unite in what we have similar in order to be able to discuss what we have different. I want to be ready to hug the bullet that would kill me, and that won’t happen until I know that my blood would fertilize the soil it feeds, and that my impact on the world would be like Gibran’s, making everyone who reads it back to their childhood divine essence.