by Jamal Nasr
He rose up quickly from his bed. His eyes were joyful. With hasty steps, he headed to his house door. He went out to the sleepy neighborhood, where silence was the master. Clock points to six o’clock in the morning. No one there on the street to breathe the morning of Ramdhan.
He looked around to his neighbors houses, telling himself: “my friends will be out soon”. In acrobatic steps, he jumped to the sandy vacant land facing his house. It looked like a small sand hill.
He looked to the sky with cheer, closed his eyes and started his eternal dream; “Once, I will be a pilot. It is all six years until I finish high school. After that, I will be there in the sky”. His ideas were interrupted by the sound of a warplane. He opened his eyes facing the sky.. did not see anything.. so he jumped down the hill looking for his friends.
***
It was around 01:00 PM when he finished the Friday prayers. His mother called him; “Younes, go and get some water”.
With his uncle, he went to fetch water with resentment inside. He was praying to God to put an end to this war so he does not need to go fetching water every day.
His fingers rested in the palm of his uncle. With his other hand, he held a yellow jerkin. It used to be for cooking oil one day.
When he arrived to the water tank, it was all as usual.. a small crowd of people with the yellow color dominating the place.
He approached the water tap starring at the elixir of life pouring into the jerkin.
Suddenly, he hears that roar. He told himself: Yes, it’s a shell..
Something inside told him to run away.. but in few seconds, the shell landed near the water tap…
….
A moment of silence.. he did not feel anything, nor heard anything.. he saw is uncle screaming.. the voice of his uncle broke the silence.. “help me, save us.. Younes.. Yoooooounes..”
He tried to stand up.. but he couldn’t. He felt severe pain in every single inch of his body. His body seemed lighter that it was.
He looked to his legs but did not see them.. he was shocked and did not believe it. He saw the flesh of his legs all over the place.. on the ground, on the water tank and surrounding walls..
He screamed as loud as he can.. “mom…”
He felt hands carrying him to the back of a motorbike… his cousin was looking at him and saying: “don’t worry… don’t close your eyes.. don’t sleep”.
He felt he wanted to sleep but he resisted. He didn’t want to slip into that other world… pain was unbearable for his small heart..
A voice was screaming inside him.. “I won’t die… I won’t die..”
***
As they arrived to the hospital, someone carried him on a stretcher. They rushed him into the operations theatre. With his tired eyes, he lost feeling of the place or time. His resistance faded away and he finally gave up. He unknowingly closed his eyes.
***
Details of this incident have become the routine of his daily life afterwards. The same memories hunting him every day and in every place.
The same question kept occupying his mind but unanswered: what is the use of someone who doesn’t have legs, lives with one hand and can only see by one eye?…
He put his hands on his eye trying to prevent spontaneous tears..
He tried to raise his head to the sky… to remember an old dream.. but he couldn’t.. he won’t fly.. he won’t be in the sky someday.
He saw some neighbors going to fetch water.. he wanted to say to them:
“don’t go.. you will die.. you will lose parts of your bodies.. you will lose your dreams too..”
But he kept these words for himself.
His mother was looking at him on his wheelchair from their house window.. a lot of questions stormed her mind.. how comes I lost my brother in a blink of an eye? How comes my 12 year old child became disabled?
How would he spend the rest of his life on a wheelchair in a country like Yemen and in a city like Taiz? where death wanders its alleys..
Two tears escaped her eyes and dropped gently on her face.
She went to him, embraced him and brought him home..
She put him on his bed.. he grabbed his phone and started browsing a recoded media coverage for his painful incident…
The voice of the correspondent was all around the place..
(once again.. a mortar shell falls on a water tank killing and injuring scores of people, mostly children…)
