Stories from Real Life
Stories from Real Life
My Forgotten Story
I will not start with the usual “once upon a time” since what I am going to say has not yet become part of the past and is still on-going.
One day, I went out with my family for an outing on the beach. While walking there I saw a young girl sitting by herself so I started walking slowly in her direction until I was close enough to sit beside her. Looking at her, I saw a girl whose eyes were full of sadness and agony.
I said very gently and in a low voice: “What’s wrong my friend, why do I see you so burdened with hopelessness?”
She responded: “I don’t want to talk to anyone, just leave me alone”; but I insisted on finding out the reason of her sadness. She started crying and then said: “Do you want to know the reason of my sadness and pain?”
I responded: “Yes of course.”
Here is what she said:
“Since my early years I used to have a queer dream which has never left me until the present day. I never thought that that dream, once it became a reality, will be the cause of my despair and breakdown. I used to dream always of a stormy night with very heavy rain and I would open my window and look at this awesome scene of nature and to the heaven that seemed to support it.
There was a very deep darkness and a very strong wind which was getting stronger and stronger until it seemed about to uproot the rocks. It seemed as if the sky was crying. I was reflecting on all what I was watching in front of the window while at the same time I was trembling not knowing whether that was because I was cold or it was the fear that made me tremble. In either case, I felt strongly driven to continue looking out of my window.
All of a sudden, while looking at the mighty sky crying, I saw a gleam of light followed immediately by a huge noise. Looking at the light which I saw and the noise which I heard, I started reflecting on why the gleam of light came before the noise? Were they competing in a race like two youngsters in their school yard? Or were they in a race like the one between seconds and minutes? I was really wondering whether that violence and anger were lighting the darkness of the night.
I was really perplexed while looking at this scene with great astonishment and disbelief.
My mother used to come to me and ask why I was staring at that deep darkness and urge me to go to bed and dream of a nice house or a doll or beautiful colors or the singing birds or one of these mother birds coming back with some food for their babies. Go back to bed my sweet girl she would say, go back to sleep.
I cannot forget that night when I had this dream and when I woke up trembling from fear and sat on the sofa and then a fearful light appeared which almost made me lose my sight followed by a forceful sound which almost made me lose my hearing. I was dismayed and terribly scared such that I could not stand up. All of a sudden my mother opened the door of my room and said with a horrified voice: You are here but your father and your brothers are outside…
The volcano covered every place, the sky was full of black crows that spread their poisons over every village and every town and every street.
Hayat (the girl’s name) stopped talking and started crying. Then with great agony and grief, she said with a trembling voice: “On that day, I lost my father and my brothers.” Then, she continued:
“The sorrow and sadness dominated everything, my mind, my heart, my body, everything in me. Even the sun looked very sad and ashamed; ashamed from rising every morning, because every new dawn brings with it another number of martyrs covered with white and red shrouds scented with fragments of Jasmine.
The world celebrates the new-year with roses and lit candles, while we bid farewell to and shed tears for our beloved ones.
Maybe now you know, my friend, the reason of my sadness and my agony, and the story of that day which never leaves my memory.
This was not a life story of mine, but rather it is a fact of life that has brought misery to a people which have never known the meaning of the word “impossible”
With my best regards
Iman Hameed Ayyash
Age: 17 Years
Now That He Is Gone, Who Will Care For the Rose Tree
Watching the sunset, here I am trying to put my feelings into words. It is not merely words and expressions that pass by, but rather deeply hearted feelings. Should I say they are the outcome of a combination of love and sadness? Or it is the relationship between the bitter reality we are living and the beautiful dream that faded away. It is a painful experience where we are lost between dreams and wishes on the one hand and the painful reality on the other.
The bitter taste of the painful feelings that I go through in trying to adapt to the realities of my world only come to me after a while… likewise is the darkness which I feel I have to suffer after it has engulfed our home since the beam of happiness abandoned it.
No one knows what destiny hides for us, which can, easily and simply, take away from us that beam of life without us feeling it. That is what I had to face… when my brother was taken away from us… very far away. I wonder if my words or even my pages can really contain the feeling of sadness and worries that I am suffering due to his absence.
I hardly remember a day when he and I didn’t have a fight… and of course I used to scold him. Whenever I remember those days I wish it all was just a long dream and that I am waiting for the moment the dream came to an end. I would take an imaginary long ride away from all this agony and during this ride of imagination, I would enter a world of hopes and dreams that I would like to realize. I wish I can get rid of my guilt feeling as I never realized that I had all this love in my heart for my brother. After losing him, I certainly feel that a precious part of me was shattered… This is what I feel whenever I remember him.
I really wonder if the clouds of the days that go by can rid me of those painful memories and leave me only with the beautiful ones. Although, if they do, even the beautiful ones will still torture me. The most beautiful of those memories was when he planted the rose tree. He was waiting to see its first buds that would bring happiness into his heart and he would start innocently laughing from all his heart while expressing his joy whenever he lovingly touched its leaves, or tenderly watered his beloved tree. But then what am I to expect now? Now that my brother is gone and left his rose tree seeking somebody to water it.
My brother left us leaving behind nothing but torturing memories which would come back to us whenever I remembered him and we would feel as if the past has become a rope strangling us with beautiful old days that have gone forever… those memories come back to give me a sense of loneliness reminding me of the joyful days when I used to spend my time playing or quarrelling with him. Although I have no idea if all that quarrelling had any cause behind it or none at all. However, all I know and think of now is that I miss him very… very much.
The image of his laughing face brings to me the patience I need to bear with his departure. But when I remember his tears I feel like smashing anything in my way so that I can go and wipe off his tears which burn my heart with feelings I can hardly resist.
The departure of my brother was the first blow of sadness that has struck my life. Since his death was a real shock that sent me into perplexity and confusion as well as a cycle of very bitter sadness. Let me say that his death was the first calamity my heart experienced.
The day he died I was engulfed with such a painful sadness and I was unable to accept the fact that he has departed forever. I used to go to the cupboard secretly in order to smell his clothes as if seeking to feel that he is still with us. His soul is now very far away from us and his departure makes me burn yearning to see him. Losing my brother has tragically fallen on us as if the catastrophe came to put an end to all beautiful things in our life.
Silence is the only thing left for me to resort to when I am sad, and in order to break the vicious circle of this silence I would seek some peace of mind and of heart by resorting to writing… hoping that whatever I write would give me the feeling that I have done something for my brother… something he loves. Also hoping that time will give me some hope and the feeling that my brother is still there and will always be present in my mind and thoughts.
No cloudy days will ever take away my memories because they are the only vein that keeps pumping life into my being after I lost him. I will always hope that my destiny will take a different course that makes me see my brother’s image in the faces of all children.
Name: Areej Mua3ammar
Age: 15 years
Address: Rafah, Sofa
Translated by Haifa H. Ruhayem
