A Dead Visitor

A Dead Visitor

Asmaa Khalaf Madlool

University Of Anbar

asmaakm@uoanbar.edu.iq

      It is a hard fate for my little city, Fallujah, to endure a second attack by the international forces. How can this be true, all  the  universal forces determine to erase a little city from the map. Though it is little in area, but it is amazing especially its part that sleeps on the hand of Euphrates. The sounds of mosques mix  to produce a religious hymn of   eternity. I am born and raised to be part of this eternal ceremony.   family is living in amiss. whether to leave the city or remain as we did in the first attack. How can we stay again to witness the pain, death and blood. Only to be protected   by our home. Huge family with many kids cannot afford the fatigue of displacement. We were saved in the first war physically, but our spirits are so hurted . The images of blood, dying people, and  the dead occupy a large part of  our souls. Until now the stories of our family have the smell of death,  thus the decision  is to stay home rather than enduring the pain of displacement.  I watch the fearing and thinking of the way of death that we will face. We learn that only few families in our neighborhood remain in the city. I write every event briefly during this escapade.

     I am the fifth of eleven brothers. I seize the opportunity of remaining only indoor to write true scenes of this brutality to the world. My brothers are forced to stay home for their safety, hearing the  petrified sounds  of bombs and  horrible sound of the close airplane. Being a woman, I should care for  them all.  The pilot seems to open its high sounds  on purpose to frighten people. Shortly, we early regret staying home because of  horrible images, the sound of rockets and  falling of house. From the upper floor, we check out the scène. We see a group of people bury their dead. Horrible scenes  of a war that only starts before few days. Little times in a day, the war calms , this  is a suitable time for us to sleep.  The city seems dying. The temporal quietness  suddenly vanishes with the falling of barrier that is one of local made weapon.

      Among these horrors  is, a knock on our door. Suddenly the sound of the door vanishes with horrible cry of the bombardment, dust, stone and flying roof. We hear the knock of the door latter on, but it is impossible to open it. My brother from the upper floor has a look to find a young boy with one leg begging for treatment. He seems to be  a victim of the recent attack. His shedding blood and his leg is thrown besides him prove his being newly injured. He knows that my family do not leave city, thus he comes to ache us and need  a help, but how can one penetrates the bullets.  Oh, It is too difficult to give him a hand because of the snipers. After the stop  of the shooting, we drag him to find  only a dead body. We struggle to forget his death as  sadness  mixes with regret for not giving his a hand quickly. My brother insists to endure  the risk in the new morning only to bury him. We fail to help  him in his life,  at least we should respect his death. After the  temporal  ceasefire, my brother buries him and selects a  stone on his grave to distinguish  his grave from tens of new graves besides him. The only remaining of his life  is a belt that is kept as a sign of his lost existence.

        After months of pain, the war stops. The people begin to enter the city. We begin to repair the fallen part of our house, again a faint knock is heard on our door. An old woman whose face tells various stories of pain and loss is the knocker. The surprise is that the woman is the mother of the buried young boy. She comes directly to our home   after  her arrival to the city. She knows us from people who heard about her son`s  burial. The belt is given to the woman and she distinguishes it. She is certain now of the death of her only son who is the fruit of a  long waiting.  Her son is so lucky to have a grave whereas many people don’t have any reminder for their lovers because they are  either thrown in the Euphrates or vanished ambiguously. We guide  the old woman to the grave. I notice her slow steps and her eyes that travel  so far to beautiful  spots in past. Her countenance echoes her memory because of her slight smile. This is the grave, my brother said. Her tears fall quietly on her wrinkled cheeks. She sits quietly as if she didn’t want to wake her slept lover. She murmurs few words reminding  her son of his lost life. We understand something about her son`s lover,  her preparation for  his wedding. She is relieved little  while telling the story of  his lovely childhood. We hear a history not of this man only, but of a generation`s loss. The white tale of love and beauty are distorted by blood, betray  and hatred.

    The pain of her heart shoulders me a responsibility of telling her story and others to show how  hatred has the power to turn   human life into  a wild one. Telling the pain is mere attempt  to calm my rebellious heart that loses faith in human slogans. We need a new decades to rebuild our destructed souls. Many other voices of   little child, the newly bride, the old father and others  are waiting their turn to be told.  The killers will be shocked because of revealing their buried crimes and giving voice to their victims to tell their stories. After the arrival of the broken mother I mediate in human fate.  many questions hurt my heart , how man turn into monster in human cover? How can we cease the pain? Literature has a responsibility to renounce the criminals in our society that steal our happiness?