by Sumia Sukkar
‘Liquorice!’
I see big men in the distance walking down the street. I run faster after Liquorice but I have no energy. I can feel the bones in my right knee pressing on each other. It hurts. I stop and massage my knee because I can’t move with the pain. I look up and see one of the men pick up Liquorice and start stroking her. She is not squirming in his hand so I guess he is a good guy. I reach her at last and start panting. If I look back I am sure it won’t look like I ran a lot but I still can’t stop panting.
‘Can I please have my cat back?’ I open my arms so the guy can give me Liquorice.
He laughs in my face and some spit lands on my eye. I wipe it off and smell it. It smells like blood.
‘This cat is mine now.’
‘But she lives with me.’
‘What are you? Stupid? She. Is. My. Cat. Now!’
My heart hurts me when he speaks to me like that. Why is he being horrible to me? Have I ever done anything to harm him? Why would he want to take away my Liquorice? I don’t even know him. I start to repeatedly click my fingers and tap on my hip. I’m confused. The other men around him don’t say a word but I can feel their eyes on me. They’re piercing through my head like they’re trying to read my mind.
‘Walk on boy!’
I start humming loudly so I don’t hear what he’s saying. I want to drown out everything. This feeling of unease is building up, I try to contain it but it gathers in my mouth, urging me to spit it out. I just want Liquorice back. Liquorice squirms. I think she can read my mind.
‘What is wrong with this boy? Does he not know who I am?’ The guy looks back at the others. They don’t even flinch. Their eyes are still set on me. I want to go home. I’m scared. But I don’t want to go anywhere without Liquorice.
‘I’ll teach you a lesson for getting in my way. I don’t have time for stupid boys like you,’ he says and looks back at his men.
I quickly jump to pull Liquorice out of his hands and end up pulling her tail. She screeches. I’m sorry Liquorice; I didn’t mean to hurt you.
The guy looks into my eyes and I can see evil in him. He has seen a lot of blood. I think he wants to see a lot more blood. I thought he was good at first. I want to go home. I don’t care that Yasmine slapped me any more. I just want this horrible feeling to go away.
‘Are you going to hurt me?’ My voice shakes.
The man laughs again. Why does he keep on laughing? It’s rude to laugh at someone who is asking you a question.
‘I guess you’re catching on,’ he sneers.
My mind is popping words like popcorn. I keep staring at the man but the moment I remember to say something it pops; my heart is clenching.
‘Liqu…’ I whisper but the popping sound in my mind gets louder and I can’t finish my sentence. The guy looks down at me, right into my eyes. I close my eyes and put my hands behind my back and scratch them. I wish I didn’t bite my nails. I don’t like strangers. I want to run away. I want to run away. I keep repeating it in my mind but my legs aren’t moving. I am stuck. Voices are reaching my ears but they pop the moment they enter my ear. My mind feels like hot oil. I open my eyes slowly and see the guy throw Liquorice at me. I quickly open my arms but don’t catch her in time. Her claws hold onto my leg and pierce through my skin like a knife. I scream from the pain. I can run away now. What am I waiting for? Run! My mind isn’t listening to me! I stomp my feet and start running around but I can’t run away.
The men all start laughing at me. My face is going red and I feel like my cheeks are going to explode.
‘He’s asking for it isn’t he?’ the main guy says and walks towards me slowly like he wants to scare me. I freeze and stare at his feet while rubbing my fingers against each other. I think he wants to help me. I smile a little before he spits at me.
‘Yasmine!’ I shout and start crying. My voice echoes in my ears and reminds me of the cry of a horse. Whenever I hear someone shouting in pain it reminds me of an animal. Are we all animals when in pain?
‘You know what we do to little boys like you?’
I can feel Liquorice scratching at my leg but I can’t look down at her. I feel like a statue. The man pushes me down to the ground and I scratch the palm of my hand on a stone. I look down at my hand and twitch my finger. He grabs a gun out of his pocket and points it at me. Why is he pointing a gun at me? I… I’m confused… my head… my head hurts… I pick up the stone under my hand and throw it at him. I never knew I could do such a thing but I can’t even think. It’s like my hand has a mind of its own.
‘Ya Kalb!’ the man shouts and I hear the shot of a gun. I didn’t know a bullet could travel this fast. The moment I hear the gunshot I feel a burning sensation in my hand. I look at it and see two of my fingers blown off on the ground. My hand is pouring with blood. I scream so loud and cry while screaming. This is the feeling I was talking about before death. The guy is rubbing his eye where my stone hit him. His eyebrow is bleeding and he is spreading the blood all over his face without realising. One of his men is trying to help him but the others don’t even flinch.
I look around looking for Liquorice and don’t find her in front of me. Liquorice. I see her sitting in the corner looking towards me. She looks scared.
‘Liquorice come here.’ I close my eyes and scream for mama.
The pain in my hand is making me shake and feel dizzy. I keep my eyes closed so I don’t have to look down at the blood. I hold onto my hand tighter so I can stop the pain from spreading down my body and then hear the guy speak again.
‘I’ll show you what it means to mess around with Khanjar!’
I have heard that name before… I have heard that name before. He’s a bad guy.
I open my eyes and see him point the gun closer to my face and I say the prayer in my heart. I’m sorry I ran away Yasmine. Where are you?
Two of the men standing behind him suddenly fall to the ground after loud sounds of shooting. I put my wrists on my ears so I don’t have to hear the bad sounds. My hand is dripping blood down on my ear. I hate the hot sticky feeling but I want to cover my ears. I look up and see the three men pointing their guns at someone on top of me. I lean down and rock myself while covering my ears. I keep my eyes open. I reach out one hand to my fingers and try sticking them back onto my hand. They’re not sticking back! They’re not sticking back!
‘Are you okay?’ A man leans next to me and I start rocking myself harder and making a sound from my throat to make him go away.
He picks me up and I kick and spit on his back.
‘Stop it!’
I ignore him and keep doing it till he puts me down.
‘You’re fine now, those bastards are being dealt with by my men.’
I just want him to leave me alone.
‘Liquoric…’
‘Huh?’
I look behind him and see Liquorice coming towards me. I start crying and get up slowly and run before the guy holds me again. I can see Liquorice running after me so I run faster.
Chapter Eighteen
LAVENDER
I WAKE UP to my floor shaking. It feels like it is going to split and suck me in. I jump up quickly and run out of the room. I see Yasmine and Khalid standing outside their doors in their pyjamas. I think they feel it too.
‘Yasmine, I’m scared.’
‘Don’t worry Habibi, it should stop soon.’
I run to her and we wait for the shaking to finish. It feels like we are on a roller coaster that has a problem with it. It is shaking and my heart is constantly falling to the ground and jumping into my throat within seconds. My whole body feels the tremors. We start to hear bombs and can see explosions from the sitting room window. I have never seen so many bombs at once. The bombing seems far away.
‘Yasmine let’s wake everybody and run to the cupboard room.’
‘Okay, you go wake Baba up and I’ll wake up the rest.’
I run to Baba’s room and jump on the bed and start telling him to wake up quickly. His
eyes are still half closed when he starts speaking to himself.
‘Don’t kill me please, I have a family, I have a wife!’
‘Baba! Wake up!’
Baba jumps up and wipes the drool from his mouth.
‘What is it?’ he slurs.
‘There are bombs outside, we need to hide!’
I try to help Baba up when Ali and Amira come in and start going to the other room.
‘Quick Baba!’
Baba starts walking faster but he is still very slow. The cupboard isn’t far from the bed but it feels like we have been walking for five whole minutes. I don’t know if that’s true or if I’m just nervous. Yasmine and the boys still haven’t come. I’m really scared.
‘I need to go to the toilet.’
‘Not now Baba, we don’t have time.’
Baba makes a face and we quickly go into the room. I hope we are protected here.
‘Yasmine!’ I shout from the top of my lungs.
‘Coming!’
We sit inside and start praying. The bombs start to get louder and the shaking more violent. I hold onto Baba’s arm and squeeze it. I have never liked roller coasters and now I am living on one. My heart is beating fast. I want to vomit from the fear.
‘Yasmine quick!’
I close my eyes and try to think about the girl with the chocolate eyes. Whenever I think about her I feel better. But this time my heart is pounding too fast and I can hear it loudly. I can’t keep my mind off it. Yasmine comes in with Khalid and Tariq and we close the door quickly. We can hear the bombings and feel the impact on the ground. I cuddle next to Yasmine and feel her breathing in and out. Khalid doesn’t say a word: he just looks down at his lap. I look down at my hand and fiddle with the bandage Yasmine put on it for me. My hand sometimes hurts me when I remember what happened but I try to forget. Yasmine said I was lucky to be alive so I shouldn’t complain about my hand. I am so lucky it isn’t my painting hand. Baba is breathing in and out heavily. There is a weird sound coming out of him like something is stuck in his throat. Nobody seems to mind the sound but the room is too silent and Baba’s breathing isn’t in the same rhythm with my mind. I want him to stop but I can’t stop him from breathing. Now that I think about the small space we have and how many people are all squashed sharing the same air I start to get sick. I want to get out. The more I think about it the more I feel like the walls are closing in on me. No! I need space. Give me space!
‘Adam, stop fidgeting!’
I open my eyes and realise that I was hitting Yasmine by accident.
‘How long do we have to stay here Yasmine?’
‘Please don’t start with your questions Adam.’
I just want to know how long we are staying here, my chest is tightening up and I don’t think we have been here for more than ten minutes. The ground shakes again and we hear a bomb go off. It sounds like it is just outside our door. Could it really be? I really want to go out and see what is happening but I don’t want to get hurt.
‘Did you hear that Yasmine?’
‘Yes, keep praying…’
Tariq starts praying out loud and we all repeat after him except for Baba who is making his own prayers.
Another loud bomb goes off and the ground shakes. It feels like there are falling angels. Dust starts falling from the ceiling and I start wondering if we are going to survive. I want to ask Yasmine so many questions but my heart is shaking out of fear. There is another shake and bricks fall down around us. One falls down on Ali’s leg and he starts screaming. Amira and Yasmine turn to him and try to tend to his wound. His scream sounds like a whale’s cry and with the echoes of this small space I feel like I am drowning in hopelessness. I feel my body give up to death. Dust keeps falling down and whenever I look up I get some in my eyes and mouth. I start rubbing my eyes in pain and spitting the dust out. My eyes are burning and they feel red. I don’t need to look in the mirror to know that. Bomb after bomb goes off and I stop counting because I feel the look of death on me. There’s no space to breathe and there’s blood under me from Ali’s leg. The biggest bomb of all hits and shakes us all and we all duck down as the bricks fall one by one. That’s it. I know it’s the end. As every brick falls, it feels like I am being stoned with coal pieces. I can feel my back itching from the blood trickling down. Then everything stops. No more screams from outside, no more bricks falling on us and no more shattering bombs. We all lift our heads slowly and look up. I’m alive! We are alive! We all have blood on us. I can’t see myself but I can feel the hot sticky feeling on my back. It feels like a snake is slithering down my body. It makes me shiver.
Yasmine says she thinks it’s safe to get out but I’m not sure. Tariq slowly pushes the door open. We can’t see his head any more so I guess he is looking around.
‘Oh my God! Oh Lord!’ Khalid starts calling out for God. What happened? Are dead bodies surrounding us? Yasmine helps Khalid up and goes up herself. I go up next because I can’t breathe any more. I need fresh air. When I reach the top I see Yasmine on the floor in Baba’s room with her hands slapping her head and yelling God’s name. She is crying like the women I saw in the hospital.
I look up and see Baba’s bed in place but nothing else is. I can see Yasmine’s room from here. The walls have collapsed and everything is gone. Our house is in ruins. Our house is gone. My eyes dart around trying to figure out where to begin. Is there any way we can get out of here? It looks like we are stuck between rubble and heavy bricks. I can see one of my paintings amongst the dust, bricks and cracked plates. I climb over some bricks and try to pull it out delicately but it’s gone. My painting is gone. You can’t even see the colours any more: it’s all grey. I run around trying to reach my room and get my paintings. I need to find them, I can’t go anywhere without them. Yasmine calls me back telling me it’s not safe but my paintings are more important. I can see my easel broken in the dust and rubble. Navy-blue spiders start climbing my heart again. I feel the anger boil inside me. I pick up the pieces of the easel but there’s no hope. I go around and pick my paintings out of all the mess. I have to save them. I find my painting kit lying by one of the books that Isa gave me. I pick the book up. Its pages are partially ripped out and it looks like an elephant stepped on it. All the pages are flat out like a fan. I can’t even read the title any more. Why did they have to do this to us? Where else are we going to go? I pick up all the remains of my paint and paintings and all the brushes I can find. The blood I collected is spilt over my duvet. I have no bed to sleep on now, no cover from the cold, no food, no water, no hope and my healing fingers start to bleed again.
We all sit on the rubble and rock ourselves back and forth. Everyone is following a rhythm of their own, but we are all sharing the same pain and fate.
*
The city is in ruins, we are now stripped of everything and the only things surrounding us are Pillars of Faith. Yasmine said that to me. Every night we look for abandoned places to sleep in and rest our heads. When the bomb hit I found Liquorice after hours of searching. I am happy I didn’t lose her. Sometimes she sleeps on my stomach and sometimes I lie on hers. She doesn’t say anything. Everyone’s face looks like they have rubbed themselves in dust and dirt. We have no clean speck on our bodies. Our clothes are ripped and we have no others and we walk the streets every day looking for help. I have no shoes on and the soles of my feet are starting to crack. It really hurts when we walk for a long time looking for a new place to stay. Yasmine says we have to be careful where we go. She said some places are filled with people from the free army and some places belong to the government army. People have already taken the rest of the places that were free. Before yesterday we asked a family if we could stay with them. Yasmine told them we have young ones and old ones who can’t walk any more and I think that’s what made them say yes. We had to share the same covers with them that they found in the bins. I wanted to itch all night. I couldn’t sleep. I kept playing scenarios in my head from books I’ve read. I wanted to g
et up and paint but I had nowhere to paint. We were all rolled up under one cover like sardines. If someone had come in and seen us they might even have thought we were dead. Nobody moved and hardly anybody breathed.
There is no more colour in Aleppo. Everything is grey, even we are. Everybody looks like they are dragging every limb of theirs with as much strength as possible and still we are having so much difficulty. Especially Baba, I think he has forgotten everything. He doesn’t even know we are in a war. He thinks we are travelling to see his mother. Whenever I ask Yasmine a question about Baba she gets annoyed. She ends up shouting at me and telling me that he lost his memory. I don’t think he remembers who I am. I don’t know how he can forget me. The only name he keeps on repeating is mama’s name to Yasmine. He doesn’t even notice the rest of us. His eyes are certainly cloudy, it’s not just something I think I am seeing. We are walking down the road far from home. We left days ago and every day we walk for a bit. I don’t even know if we are still in Aleppo, I think we are though. The ground is really hot today. It’s really sunny and sweaty. We have no water and the sun is hitting us right on our heads. We have no shelter. I can’t even open my eyes properly; the sun is really powerful. The soles on my feet are burning because they are cracked and the heat on the ground isn’t helping. We walk and I bite all my nails off and chew on them until I get all the taste and swallow them. I am so hungry.
Liquorice runs in front of me but I don’t have the energy to run after her.
‘Liquorice… please!’
I try to run after her but nothing in my body is helping me. I have no energy. Liquorice turns a corner and I have no choice but to push my legs that extra mile and run after her, I don’t want to lose her.
‘Liquorice!’
I look back at my family whose shoulders hang down as they drag their feet. Khalid is literally dragging his feet on the ground. I look down and he has blood on his toes. I don’t know if I should tell him or not, I don’t want to scare him. Tariq is carrying Baba because Baba can’t walk any more and Yasmine and Amira are holding onto each other. Ali and I are the only ones who are kind of okay. I turn the corner to find Liquorice and see her rummaging through a bin. My heart skips a beat out of joy and all the grey I am surrounded by slowly turns into pink. There’s hope.