TEN YEARS OF WAR

Hot and stifling, the slight evening breeze brought no respite from the constant heat that pervaded the city in the summer months. At one time, at this time of night, the streets would have been packed with neighbours and friends out walking in the parks or by the edge of the river, picnicking and spitting sunflower seeds onto the arid floor. Cigarette smoke mingling with the strong fragrance of coffee, children would scream in excitement as they bravely shot air gun pellets at rows of balloons strung in line, floating in the river. Now the parks were deserted, the trees bent and broken, the streets silent of happy shouts.

Aseed knelt by the open space that had once been their living room window. Broken, split bricks formed a crenellated pattern, the six foot hole personifying the destruction that had blown apart his family. The dusty arch framed the view of the landscape beyond. Aseed’s home and all he had known for his ten years.

Taking care not to touch any of the broken glass still hanging jagged from the last remains of the wooden casements, Aseed peered out, anxious for another look yet mindful of the warnings they had come to live with over the years. ‘Keep out of sight! Head down! Lay low! Don’t go out after dark!’ Yet he needed to mentally capture the picture outside in case he never saw it again. For who knew what the future held for him.

From behind the safety of the irregular brickwork, the little boy looked out into the darkness. There was little to see. Small lights dotted about showed how the community had shrunk since the war had begun. Friends and relatives had left or been buried under tons of concrete and rubble as buildings fell, demolished under constant fire. Aseed thought back to the loved ones he had already lost. His father had been the first. Walking home from the corner shop, bringing home bread and some vital cans of food for the evening meal, a sniper had mistaken him for an armed civilian and waiting anxiously at home, it had been hours before they had been informed by a relative knocking on their door who had seen the body lying in the street. Aseed’s heart broke then and what remained had little capacity to feel in the same way again.

On his father’s burial, Aseed’s dirty face was streaked with tears. As time went past and more relatives were buried, it no longer came as a surprise. It was just to be expected. Aseed didn’t let himself think of it often but in his nightmares, he struggled to breathe, his ribs crushed by the weight of the five floors above him and his arms pinned down, unable to move. Would it be like that for him? How long could he last?

Suddenly, the darkness of the night sky lit up with a huge explosion not a mile away. Somewhere he could hear the sounds of the aftermath….the wailing of voices and the barking of street dogs, roused from sleep by the disturbance. Aseed’s apartment block shuddered and he put out a hand to the wall as if to hold it up. This was the stuff of his dark dreams. The unseen guided missile had hit its target. But were there really any targets left? There seemed no reason to the air strikes, now taking out the last remaining civilians. Hospitals, schools, transport- all had been raised to the ground in the first wave. Nothing was left of any value apart from the lives of those still reluctant to leave.

Aseed remembered the day his family home had been the target.  The day this new window had been created. The day his window on life had changed. Sleeping in a cot with fresh sheets, his newly born baby sister had taken the full force of the blast. Before her life had even begun, it ended. What remained of her father in her dark eyes and curly brown hair had been ripped away from their struggling family unit. Now only Aseed and his mother remained. Zamina’s tiny body, limp and lifeless, had been buried in a shallow grave outside the city and his mother’s cries echoed loudly that day. He still heard her stifling sobs when the lights went out. Every day, Aseed would dodge his way between the towering apartments, shattered and toppling, to the bare cemetery, packed with small headstones where Zamina lay. On top of her unidentifiable mound, was a mounting collection of small items that Aseed picked up to keep her company…a flower he had seen poking out of a crack, hanging onto life; a torn page from a book with colour pictures found on the street outside the ruined library; a blue piece of glass glinting in the sun. All the earthly treasures that Aseed possessed. There was so little left of their lives that it was pointless staying. But he didn’t want to leave Zamina alone.

‘Aseed. Time to go!’ His mother called softly.

Turning at the sound of her voice, he saw her standing wearily at the door, a rucksack on her back packed with the few possessions necessary for the journey. She looked older than her years, her face ravaged by the emotions she had been forced to bear. The journey was going to be long and hard she had told him. It might take days or walking, hiding and starving. She had borrowed money, sold her gold wedding ring and anything that held any value to make this journey together, in the hope of a better life. Aseed had no idea where they were going nor how long it would take but they had battled for survival for years now and there was no fight left in them.

His mother had promised him safety, a new home, new friends and a future away from pain and fear. Having nothing else left to believe in, he took her words as the truth. A place with no bombs, no wondering if you would be next.

Surely in a place far away, he would be able to live without the hatred that he had seen over the last few years. He could live without persecution, without people judging him. A place where he would be welcomed, where people would try to understand the experiences he had been through in his short and traumatic life. He could almost feel the peace he would know.

Aseed looked back at the city.

‘Goodbye,’ he said quietly to all his memories. Picking up a small blanket, dirty and torn, he kissed it. ‘Come on Zamina, We are going now and you are coming too’

Aseed turned his back on the window. Full of hope, he followed his mother out of the door.