I lean toward my mirror, gazing at the reflection of my pale features and at my almond-shaped eyes, whose spark has been dimmed by the sorrowful nights of the North. I touch my limbs as a mother would touch her newborn after awakening from the agony of childbirth.
How can I believe that I remain whole—that my body survived intact—after escaping the fire of a shell that nearly severed one of my limbs in a sudden raid?
Fear had seized my heart back then. I saw death with my own eyes, yet it did not see me. I hid behind an olive tree, afraid that my brave heart might challenge it—and I would be crushed by its might. I whispered to myself: the olive tree is rooted deep in this land, and it would not allow me to be cut down for firewood while I sought shelter beneath it. The olive tree will protect me. I will root myself in it as it has rooted itself in my homeland.
The scene was harrowing. Just moments before the inferno fell, I had been standing beside the building, humming a tune by Baligh Hamdi. I had grown used to composing melodies for my sorrows whenever the rhymes of my language failed to express the calamities swelling inside me. I let the music carry me—until my vocal cords were worn thin by fear.
When I heard the shell, everything became a blur—though the sun was high. I saw the flames devour everything in madness, even the bodies of children, as though fire preferred their small forms above all.
Death became inevitable. That end, which had chased me so persistently since the war began—I had fled from it many times, and now it had nearly claimed me. I do not know how I ran to clutch the earth behind the olive tree. For a fleeting moment, I imagined it was my mother. I embraced it as a child embraces his mother, insisting that the darkness of night is nothing but a mirage—as long as he rests in her arms.
Had it not been for that tree, I would have been a charred corpse, my ashes nourishing the roots of the remaining trees… and then forgotten, as we so often are.
Nour Abo Aisha
Nour Abo Aisha is a journalist, writer, and freelancer living in the Gaza Strip, Palestine. She is a translator and literature student. She says, “Writing is my only escape from this confinement, enabling me to express my pain and lost dreams. It is keeping me sane.”
Cover photo of olive branches by Mhamad Kleit
