Amid Life and Death

“Mama, Mama....” She was sobbing in her sleep and clinging harder to me at the sound of each explosion. There is nothing I can do except tell her that everything is going to be fine.

“Yaa Allaahh, Why do you allow this? Without your wish, without your knowledge, nothing happens in this world” I wanted to scream out into the darkness, ask him why he bought this fate upon me. My baby, Noor is hardly two years old..... How do I tell her why she won’t see her baba anymore? How do I explain why her mother can’t stop the explosions and gunshots that disturb her so much?

It’s past midnight but my child is still unable to sleep tight. I grew up hearing gunfire and explosion. It seems like she too will have to get used to it. I lost her father and brother to these people....the so called soldiers who kill our brothers and molest our sisters in the name of power.

(Suddenly, someone screams outside. Fatima peers through the thin ragged curtains.)

“Allaahh...the street...it’s raining fire, they are dropping bombs...Noor woke up and started pulling my robe. Burying her head in my lap, she tries to hide from all the horrid sounds...sounds of death.

Nearby, my neighbour Layla’s house has caught fire...her daughter is as old as mine. They are moving out with her husband. She ducked to cover her child from fire and ran across the road...the entire street suddenly filled up with heavy smoke.

Here, I stood peeping through my window, without courage to move out...silently praying my home is saved....I know if I go out with her, we will both die. We don’t have anywhere to go.

Slowly the smoke cleared. As dawn began, I realized that the only house left on this street is ours. To take a better look, I opened the front door. “Allaaahh! Layla...her baby, their half burnt bodies hugging each other at my doorstep.” The fire had left holes through their skin and flesh till the bones. She was trying to take her baby to the safety of my roof. What new devil’s way is this? How much more gruesome will you make death for us? I turned away behind my door.

This was how days began for us, greeted by dead and injured....from how long I don’t remember.

Word has it, that it is a new chemical bomb that was used yesterday. A chemical, that sticks to the skin or clothes and burn in the air. You can’t wipe it or take out. It separates the bones and flesh. They are not supposed to use it in wars; rules are meant for the suppressed and weak. At times we can’t stand the hotness of the teapot and this small girl and her innocent baby, with their skin burning when they are fully alive? How can a mother see her baby burnt alive in front of her eyes?...

Only a few people are alive from our street, many are fatally burnt.

In the kitchen except a little flour and water, all our supplies are over. I have to cook something before Noor wakes up. My poor girl does not even know life with good food, nice clothes, toys or even peaceful sleep. She was born in an uncanny tent of a health camp. All these mighty men who order war and sleep peacefully at home, don’t they have families? Don’t they fear for their children at the slightest hurt or ill-health? The slightest pain for a child is heartache for a parent. Do they not know that we too have children?

This world, where people run behind celebrities who spends his/her life showing their body and masked face to the public, who spent their life with alcohol, drugs and later in rehabs, who died of some disease which was an outcome of their lifestyle, a world which spends hours talking about that human being while they plans, funds, supports and ignores the death of hundreds who lived a meaningful and difficult life to help others, to bring up a family or feed their children, who never had money for even food or water. Why do the virtuous ones suffer and those who go astray have everything in life?

(Gunfire rings through the kitchen’s window. Fatima falls on the floor. Noor come running and shouting for her. She falls stumbling on her mother’s lifeless body. Her fingers feel the lifeless face. She tries to poke her mother’s closed eyes just as she used to wake her from sleep. Noor starts crying when her attempts fail.)

“Mammaa...”

“Noor, baby, Mama is here” I am not able to touch her.... I was shocked. I tried to move my hand; I tried to touch my crying daughter. No, I can’t feel her. I see her but can’t touch her. She is crying; she is not seeing me. She is trying to shake me yelling ‘mama mama’. She wants me to hug her and hold her tight. Her feet are wet from my blood. It’s all around her or she is sitting in a pool of life blood which brought her to do this world and now, left her alone in this world.

“You are the soul, there lies your body” A bright glow beside her answered.
“Nooo, it cannot be, I can’t leave my dear Noor and go, please...she is alone in this world of shaitans....I have to protect her”
“The doors of paradise are open and await you Fatima...Come, let’s go”
“How can I enjoy the scents of paradise when I smell my blood from her little fingers? How can I come with you when she is hungry and unfed?”
“Your afterlife in heaven with all the goodness is your reward for your sufferings here...Come with me”
“No reward is worth leaving my little one here where she has no one. I cannot orphan my child.”

(Noor wriggles into Fatima’s lifeless arms and falls asleep there. Meanwhile, soldiers break open the door and come in. Noor wakes at the noise and clings on the lifeless body. She starts crying aloud on seeing strangers. A soldier kicked her aside; he feels Fatima’s lifeless body compelled by his dirty mind. He moved my body away from the blood pool, close to my daughter.)

“Ya Allah! What all should my daughter see? Her little face is filled with fear. She is screaming. Is she trying to stop him or is she begging for his attention? She cannot see her mother’s dead body being devoured by a savage man who does not even spare dead women.”
“Please, I can’t leave her alone to see more of this!”

(The soldiers finish and move away to search the house. Noor is crying loudly beneath the kitchen sink calling out to her mother, too scared to even move close to her body. One of the men raises his gun at her.)

“Nooo....Allaaahhh....save my daughter...Noor, Noor”

‘Mama’, she couldn’t complete it. I didn’t open my eyes. I knew it was over. I didn’t look at her. I didn’t want to see my daughter’s lifeless body. I didn’t want to see her glowing eyes lifeless. I didn’t want to see the lips that use to kiss me shivering in pain. I didn’t want to see that small hands and legs beating on the ground. Not me, not any mother, who carries them inside for months, who feels the life inside, who feels their kick, who waits for months to see the face and then suffers the biggest pain to bring them to the world and then forgets all the pain in a second when they see their baby, when they hear they cry. The men who make orders and the man who is feasting on my corpse will never understand it.

(Gunshot! Noor’s body falls beside Fatima’s)

“Noor, my baby”

Suddenly, I heard a soft whisper “Mama”. I felt a touch on my hands.
“Mama, open your eyes, where were you”? I slowly opened my eyes. “Oh God” I couldn’t believe it. My baby, she is there in front of me. She is seeing me. She is smiling, she is not tired and her clothes are clean. There are no blood stains on her hands or hair. Her eyes are glowing and she her lips are reaching my cheeks.”

“Now, can we leave?”

I smiled and took my daughter in my hands and held her close to me. She hugged me so tight rubbing her face on my cheeks.

“Now I can leave this place. Yes”

“ Let them demolish the structures made of mud and stone, let them fence the land and build houses, let them break of our bodies into flesh and bones, let them do whatever they want to live here for another few years. You can’t kill our souls, the spirit that led our body; you can’t win over my daughter and one day we will meet you in a place where even my daughter will be seated far higher than the people whom they respected the most, they feared the most and for whom they fought for.”