"When a plane crashed into the World Trade Centre, my first notion was excitement, not anxiety- but borderline exhilaration. I was eight, and it was then that I was introduced to ‘terrorism’, ‘attack’, ‘bomb’, and ‘war’, I was introduced to the world outside.
...
I didn’t realize it then. It had been drowned in the series of events that followed. Our peace was threatened for the first time.
And there was a crack on the glass."
...
I didn’t realize it then. It had been drowned in the series of events that followed. Our peace was threatened for the first time.
And there was a crack on the glass."
Refugee Of The Desert- JAE Gregory
People of all kinds lived in my little glass box. The ‘refuges’, they were calling our glass boxes now, the ‘hideouts’. There were few left, in fact, now they were a rarity, and my glass box was doing hard to preserve itself in a single piece. It struggled to keep people like me in it, ‘the refugees’, I could hear a faint snicker sometimes. I couldn’t blame them. Sometimes, I even wished we could let them in, welcome them in our midst, share our protection.
But it was not really our safety they craved, it was vengeance.
Because some of my people had their blood on their hands. I, all of us had their blood on our hands. But I shared it most, because some people of mine relished that spilt blood, and sometimes, several times, every time, I had too. All their blood.
The world was moving on. Not really moving ahead, simply because none of it was over yet. In fact, it was just the beginning. The world had devised a novel strategy to deal with this new reality- which was to cast aside these, indeed, condemnable daily ‘mishaps’ as a mere part of life, a deep, dark, depressing part, yet an inevitability.
As in, the most ingenious escape to ever be concocted in human history.
Until one bleak August, our glass box broke. Or rather, shattered. It was strange, traumatic, but above all- unbelievable. For though it had been rendered weak and fragile, even vulnerable, over the course of the continuous ‘tremors’, it just couldn’t shatter like that, the way it did- one split second I’m touching it, and another, the glass is gone. Vanished, smashed to smithereens, imploded. All I remember feeling is the slight pinch of the sand-sized crystals as they tore into my flesh, some of them to remain there forever.
Another split second and we could feel the radiance upon us. After an eternity of watchfully observing it through the glass, speculating about it, wondering how it would feel, perhaps even yearning for it, now, finally, it was upon us. And it did nothing but burn, searing through our once tender, untouched skins.
It wasn’t unusual, it was bizarre. We’d never expected this. We always believed we would have the choice to get rid of our protection, remove the glass box, at our will, when we wanted it. I guess that was nature’s lesson- we have no control, we have no possession- even of things we spend lifetimes believing our slaves of our beck and call.
Suddenly, the world could see us. Heads turned when their eyes saw us. We were total strangers to those suspicious, perhaps accusing, glances. We were people from a different world altogether, a protected world, maybe a better world. And now they would smile at us, “No more protection for you is there, buddy?”
This time, there was no relish.
The glass box was in a country. It had to be in one anyway, every piece of land on earth was someone’s territory. But it was a good country, and we occupied a rather valuable spot in it- the glass box. The glass box had been painstakingly constructed over the years, formed to serve its purpose from a near ancestor who had probably washed his hands off this world, and so we took refuge in it. It was a treasure. It was my home. In truth, the glass box was my life.
But the reality still remained. We had returned to being nothing but ‘foreigners’ here again. And now, as the real treasure no longer existed, it was time to ‘leave’, time to pack all that we’d so laboriously reaped over decades into 30 kilos of luggage per person and get lost.
I wasn’t shocked or unwilling or depressed. I accepted yet again, too willingly, too easily. But that was one of my greatest merits. If only I’d known, it was also one of my greatest shortcomings.
My ‘motherland’ is a people bustling with hope. That’s the first thing you notice about it as soon as you spot its wayward streets sweeping with the incorrigible traffic between spectacular rows of streetlights- should they be nourished with electricity. Because when you step out onto the tarmac and meet the buzz of travelers at the airport, what you see in their attitude is not ignorance of all these ‘malfunctions’. You see hope, a fragile yet unwavering ray of hope that one day, just one day things might settle. One day some miracle would answer the prayers they’d despaired, and ‘power’ would be restored, in a list of many things, more important things, things akin to matters of life and death. Until that day, they would just accept and adjust. It doesn’t just run in the blood, it’s a complete way of life.
I would be lying if I said I was initially scared, because I wasn’t merely scared, I was terrified. I wasn’t looking at the hope in their eyes that a casual first-timer would see. I was looking amid the deep, dark and mostly bead-black eyes for even the slightest indication of a hostile. Or the sign of a friend. But besides the hope, or the despair, they were indifferent, unrevealing, and that was terrifying.
I had always loved my country, though it wasn’t patriotism, a far cry from that, or anything else remotely brave. It was only for those brief moments of escape, very brief- for none of us could risk staying in it any longer than that- in which I met yet another small world, still pretty much concealed from the rest of it, like in a temporary glass bubble. I met a world of love, of kinship, of family, my family. I met a world where people I’ve never met, and don’t think I share even a percentage of my genetics with, would lovingly come up to me, pat my head and explain how somehow, we were related. And even though I knew then that we weren’t really at all, I felt it in my bones that we were. Blood, for me, was thinner than water. Perhaps that’s why I could relish it spilling so easily.
But now, now it wasn’t merely a brief spell, a vacation. I was there, possibly, probably forever. But worst of all, I was exposed, unprotected, revealed. The world outside was no longer a whim or an imagination, it was a reality that I was facing, and the more I did, the more I felt it was nothing like the dreams I’d had about it. It was a living nightmare.
In this world you don’t trust anybody, not your closest pal, not even the nearest of your kin, definitely not your brother. I wasn’t an alien to them. I was an innocent deer that had just jumped in the midst of a pack of emaciated predators. And they had surrounded me, were watching me closely, as if studying their prey.
I lowered my gaze, even the eyes are deceiving.
It was only the first time I met an orphan that it truly sickened me. What was I calling it? Oh yeah, the relish.
She had dull dark hair, sallow cheeks that looked as if all the blood and flesh underneath had been sucked out of them and pale tan skin. A pair of stolid honey-hued eyes that seemed to have receded in their sockets stared back at me. They couldn’t have been more indifferent or emotionless, almost zombie-like. I could tell she was a recent orphan; the confusion was glaring out of every feature on her face, or at least what remained of it.
I could sense a distinct similarity to this girl. If only her hair had more luster, or her cheeks were a little more lifted, or the blood would return to her skin, if only her eyes would become a little more alive, just a little more vibrant, then…then…the girl in that mirror would be me. Just like me.
She lowered her stare and I found myself looking at the bathroom sink.
19, 19 had died in that bombing. 17 of them were adults, probably parents. 17 parents had been blown into bits, ripped apart, piece by piece, mutilated like some insignificant lifeless toy, like my glass box. And something had whispered in my mind then, “Only 19?”
I threw up.
It had taken them thirteen hours to piece my mother together.
I fainted.
But it was not really our safety they craved, it was vengeance.
Because some of my people had their blood on their hands. I, all of us had their blood on our hands. But I shared it most, because some people of mine relished that spilt blood, and sometimes, several times, every time, I had too. All their blood.
The world was moving on. Not really moving ahead, simply because none of it was over yet. In fact, it was just the beginning. The world had devised a novel strategy to deal with this new reality- which was to cast aside these, indeed, condemnable daily ‘mishaps’ as a mere part of life, a deep, dark, depressing part, yet an inevitability.
As in, the most ingenious escape to ever be concocted in human history.
Until one bleak August, our glass box broke. Or rather, shattered. It was strange, traumatic, but above all- unbelievable. For though it had been rendered weak and fragile, even vulnerable, over the course of the continuous ‘tremors’, it just couldn’t shatter like that, the way it did- one split second I’m touching it, and another, the glass is gone. Vanished, smashed to smithereens, imploded. All I remember feeling is the slight pinch of the sand-sized crystals as they tore into my flesh, some of them to remain there forever.
Another split second and we could feel the radiance upon us. After an eternity of watchfully observing it through the glass, speculating about it, wondering how it would feel, perhaps even yearning for it, now, finally, it was upon us. And it did nothing but burn, searing through our once tender, untouched skins.
It wasn’t unusual, it was bizarre. We’d never expected this. We always believed we would have the choice to get rid of our protection, remove the glass box, at our will, when we wanted it. I guess that was nature’s lesson- we have no control, we have no possession- even of things we spend lifetimes believing our slaves of our beck and call.
Suddenly, the world could see us. Heads turned when their eyes saw us. We were total strangers to those suspicious, perhaps accusing, glances. We were people from a different world altogether, a protected world, maybe a better world. And now they would smile at us, “No more protection for you is there, buddy?”
This time, there was no relish.
The glass box was in a country. It had to be in one anyway, every piece of land on earth was someone’s territory. But it was a good country, and we occupied a rather valuable spot in it- the glass box. The glass box had been painstakingly constructed over the years, formed to serve its purpose from a near ancestor who had probably washed his hands off this world, and so we took refuge in it. It was a treasure. It was my home. In truth, the glass box was my life.
But the reality still remained. We had returned to being nothing but ‘foreigners’ here again. And now, as the real treasure no longer existed, it was time to ‘leave’, time to pack all that we’d so laboriously reaped over decades into 30 kilos of luggage per person and get lost.
I wasn’t shocked or unwilling or depressed. I accepted yet again, too willingly, too easily. But that was one of my greatest merits. If only I’d known, it was also one of my greatest shortcomings.
My ‘motherland’ is a people bustling with hope. That’s the first thing you notice about it as soon as you spot its wayward streets sweeping with the incorrigible traffic between spectacular rows of streetlights- should they be nourished with electricity. Because when you step out onto the tarmac and meet the buzz of travelers at the airport, what you see in their attitude is not ignorance of all these ‘malfunctions’. You see hope, a fragile yet unwavering ray of hope that one day, just one day things might settle. One day some miracle would answer the prayers they’d despaired, and ‘power’ would be restored, in a list of many things, more important things, things akin to matters of life and death. Until that day, they would just accept and adjust. It doesn’t just run in the blood, it’s a complete way of life.
I would be lying if I said I was initially scared, because I wasn’t merely scared, I was terrified. I wasn’t looking at the hope in their eyes that a casual first-timer would see. I was looking amid the deep, dark and mostly bead-black eyes for even the slightest indication of a hostile. Or the sign of a friend. But besides the hope, or the despair, they were indifferent, unrevealing, and that was terrifying.
I had always loved my country, though it wasn’t patriotism, a far cry from that, or anything else remotely brave. It was only for those brief moments of escape, very brief- for none of us could risk staying in it any longer than that- in which I met yet another small world, still pretty much concealed from the rest of it, like in a temporary glass bubble. I met a world of love, of kinship, of family, my family. I met a world where people I’ve never met, and don’t think I share even a percentage of my genetics with, would lovingly come up to me, pat my head and explain how somehow, we were related. And even though I knew then that we weren’t really at all, I felt it in my bones that we were. Blood, for me, was thinner than water. Perhaps that’s why I could relish it spilling so easily.
But now, now it wasn’t merely a brief spell, a vacation. I was there, possibly, probably forever. But worst of all, I was exposed, unprotected, revealed. The world outside was no longer a whim or an imagination, it was a reality that I was facing, and the more I did, the more I felt it was nothing like the dreams I’d had about it. It was a living nightmare.
In this world you don’t trust anybody, not your closest pal, not even the nearest of your kin, definitely not your brother. I wasn’t an alien to them. I was an innocent deer that had just jumped in the midst of a pack of emaciated predators. And they had surrounded me, were watching me closely, as if studying their prey.
I lowered my gaze, even the eyes are deceiving.
She had dull dark hair, sallow cheeks that looked as if all the blood and flesh underneath had been sucked out of them and pale tan skin. A pair of stolid honey-hued eyes that seemed to have receded in their sockets stared back at me. They couldn’t have been more indifferent or emotionless, almost zombie-like. I could tell she was a recent orphan; the confusion was glaring out of every feature on her face, or at least what remained of it.
I could sense a distinct similarity to this girl. If only her hair had more luster, or her cheeks were a little more lifted, or the blood would return to her skin, if only her eyes would become a little more alive, just a little more vibrant, then…then…the girl in that mirror would be me. Just like me.
She lowered her stare and I found myself looking at the bathroom sink.
19, 19 had died in that bombing. 17 of them were adults, probably parents. 17 parents had been blown into bits, ripped apart, piece by piece, mutilated like some insignificant lifeless toy, like my glass box. And something had whispered in my mind then, “Only 19?”
I threw up.
It had taken them thirteen hours to piece my mother together.
I fainted.
(...to be continued...)
- Bushra
- Bushra
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