The article is edited by: Eva Burke 

The only thing that occupies your mind is death. You can’t stop asking yourself: Why have I not died? Why have all my many souls not died? Am I even worthy of what’s remaining?

From within your shock, you beg of God: my Lord, bring it to me, slide this heavy cloud of waiting from my heart, take me to your heaven, please my Lord. Perhaps by serving me my fate then the birds can sing again, please God, increase the hundreds and thousands already dead with my one death.

You close your eyes and listen to your unconscious mind begging of God, dreaming of the heaven after death which is promised by him to the patient people. You ask yourself: oh Lord, am I one of the patient people?

Your senses begin to rise up in response to your imagination’s reflections: wake up from your sleep, your body is tired, your head is heavy, you can’t take a breath from your lungs and you scream in horror: it is the seventeenth day of war!

You wish you were a smoker in the past, then at least now in these long nights of war it would keep you occupied. Suddenly you remember that you left empty-handed, no clothing or money, you even left your soul there. You have nothing to protect you from the notion of blackness.

You take a long and deep breath and remember your unpainted, humble house. You ask: are you still there, resisting, or have the artillery shells swallowed you?

Are you still standing, repelling the anger away from you as you scream at them: “You will not make me uproot my history!”

Tell me what is happening with the palm which is planted beside you. Does she accompany you in our absence? Do you lean on her or her on you? Are you inspired with patience from her?

Does she repeat the fearful talk to you? Do you speak of it to her? Tell her we are all afraid.

Are the grapes and dates still on their bushes, waiting for the harvest season, or have they been scattered and smeared on the ground by the bombardments?

Tell me, my life partner, are your walls breathing or repelling the smoke from the war planes and artillery?

Do you know anything about our neighbor? Are all of her family members really murdered? They were lying, weren’t they? She was just hiding in the staircase.

Why don’t you contact me and tell me about all my life details? I have missed everything that belongs to you: every stone and corner. I wish I could make my way through all this fear and cover all the things you now remind me of. You are the only one who can tell our story when we are gone. If you are gone, our history will be finished!

Who will read the scraps of papers which have been accumulated in the office drawers? Who will walk next to our land and say, here a human has lived. You are our memory and our story. Please resist. Stay to protect us from the deceit of our imagination and this craving for death.