Dust

Dust from the rocket choked the street.

It choked the huddled women, silenced the screaming children and stuffed the nostrils of the dogs shivering in the alley ways. 

Dust roiled from pulverised stone, from houses that had once been homes, with bedrooms where love was made and kitchens where families had gathered.

Powdered lives drifted in the heat, shutting the mouths of angry men.

The young woman writhed like a desert demon from the rubble, coughing and spitting. Debris spilled from her black hair and robe. 

She staggered from the wreckage into the haze of powder moving oppressively along the street; dry dust that made breathing feel like heaving air through a mouth stuffed with dirty lace.

Suddenly, the young woman felt deeply lonely.

Sound had been wiped away by the explosion. 

All but a nasty ringing, a strident whining in her head. 

The young woman trembled and shook her head like a dog. She sank to her knees, cradling her gritty face and eyes in her hands.

* * *

In the neighourhood, with its square stone houses and rows of small shops and stalls, the morning of the blast opened with its usual tension. Fear squatted in the streets, in the lack of food and threats of violence; in the angry exchanges in the market. 

Tempers rose with the day's heat. But the young woman's neighbour was always angry. 

A strong and abrasive woman, the neighbour had bitterly resented the new family from the moment they'd arrived, pulling up in an old truck piled with their belongings. 

The young woman and her two children had hardly begun bringing things through their new front door when the neighbour stomped out of her house.

'You can't live here!' she'd shouted. 'I want to add that house to mine!'

The young woman and her children had stopped unloading and had stared at the neighbour. 

'I'm sorry,' the young woman had said, holding up several papers, 'this is what we were given. So this is where we're staying.'

'Then you were given wrong. And you're not staying,' the neighbour had replied, quietly. 

Picking up a wooden chair, the neighbour had pushed aside one of the young woman's children and made to throw it back on the truck.

The young woman had grabbed one of the chair legs.

'Stop that!' 

In the undignified struggle, the chair pitching back and forth between, both women had screamed at each other. People in the street stopped to gawp. 

In the end, the neighbour had stormed back into her own house shouting, 'You can't have that house. I won't let you live there!' and slamming the door. 

Both women had lost their husbands; both women had children to bring up, supported by extended family - but there the similarity ended. 

Over months, and no matter how conciliatory the young woman tried to be, the neighbour relentlessly threw angry words whenever the opportunity arose. 

'You come here and take my house It should be my house,' the neighbour had scolded. 'Go back where you came from. I need it for my children. They're nearly grown.'

She had snubbed all peace offerings from the young woman and had even engaged in petty mischief, furtively throwing the young woman's washing on the ground or knocking over plant pots in the dark.

But now that she'd a house at last, the young woman wasn't giving it up - whatever her neighbour demanded and despite the constant harassment. She'd tried hard but eventually the young woman had come to hate and fear her caustic neighbour. 

Her children had also suffered, picked on by the older ones next door. After the loss of their father, the young woman had tried to raise them to be considerate and friendly and they'd taken the bullying hard. The young woman sent them away to relatives when she could - though she herself would never leave the house empty.

This morning had been notably bad. A piercing high-pitched scream of invectives from the neighbour swarmed after the young woman, who ran inside leaving clothes half hanging in the bright sunlight. She'd collapsed against the back kitchen wall, burying her head in her hands.

Just then, the missile arrived.

* * *

The young woman got shakily to her feet, spitting and stamping, shaking grit her hair. 

In her ears, in her head, the sharp whining sound persisted.

As the curtain of dust began drifting away in the heat, the devastation in the little neighourhood came into focus. In one violent, earth-shattering moment, the rocket had erased half the block around her. 

Her neighbour's house was rubble. Spears of wood poked through a ruin of stone and broken walls; doors hung at improbable angles under lintels holding up nothing but sky. Utensils, tiles and broken furniture twisted over the wreckage. 

The young woman's own house was only partially damaged. A corner was missing, like an extracted tooth; the corner that had collapsed on her. 

And, what a miracle: God is merciful! If she hadn’t been leaning... just so... against that wall, she would have been killed outright.

Sudden panic; a rising dread in her stomach. Her children! Where were her children?

A big out-breath. Another miracle. God is good! Of all days, they were staying their grandmother. Thanks to her horrible neighbour.

Suddenly, like a cracking wave, the bedlam of fear and anger in the street surged up and over her: a huge noise of screaming and shouting, engines and sirens; dogs barking, children crying; figures running mindlessly to and fro in the hazy light. 

Through this confusing wall of noise, the shrill whining in the young woman's ears grew louder, speeding up; morphing into an insistent keening.

Her neighbour. 

In the street, standing before wreckage that had once been her house, the neighbour tore at her clothes hysterically. 

My children: lost! Every one of them buried indoors, beneath the rubble. 

Squirming uncontrollably with grief and rage, the neighbour brought down acid curses on both God and her enemies. 

The young woman turned her face away.

And smiled.