On one of the days in the cold Za’atri winter, where winds howled and rain was falling; my 5 siblings, my mother, and I could not sleep until the sun came out. By then the winds and the rain had stopped, and we fixed our tent that was infiltrated with rain water. After that I slept, and in my sleep I had a dream.
I dreamt that I was in my room in Syria, sleeping and dreaming, and inside that dream I dreamt that all what is happening in my country is just a bad nightmare. That all this death didn’t really happen, that my brother Khaled and my friend Malek did not die, and that our neighbor Fida’ and his siblings did not suffocate. I dreamt that our house wasn’t destroyed from the bombings. Suddenly, my mother woke me up from my dream, but in reality I was still dreaming. I started wondering, was I dreaming? Was all the death I saw just a dream? Then I hear my mom telling us that she didn’t cook today, and since we were hungry we started debating what to get from the restaurant. It was nighttime when I suddenly woke up to see that I was still in my damp tent, torn from the wind. The cold was unbearable.
Our dreams haunt us, and our desires taunt us to the smallest details. We miss gatherings with our neighbors over a cup of coffee or tea around the heater at our house. Our house that is not ours anymore; it’s now just a pile of rubble. And my brother who will not return because he has gone to another life; an eternal one without death or killing.
-Amani