Me, the guy for whom the world once spanned the sweet river of the Nile to the eagle feather adorning a Native American, now does not find space in a shattered city where every inch holds a drop of blood and a fragment of a foreign missile that suddenly fell and killed an entire tribe!

Whoever only knew me from my past long ago could not imagine that my present is now in a tent, that my unknown future is in a tent, and that my existential struggle, if prolonged, will be from a tent.

That’s all I can write two weeks after my disastrous displacement from my beloved and abandoned home in Rafah, as I am Amir, the coward I’ve always been and the guy who can’t do anything except document the heaviness of his heart and the drama of the scene.

Scene 1: Displacement

Rafah, the 11th of May. It was a very calm Saturday morning when I woke up from the nightmare of my eight-member family having to leave our home, to the nightmare becoming a reality. The sound of crows filled the background, leaving only a dramatic silence, and the sky was devoid of any cotton clouds.

“Where to?” I asked.

“To the tent?” I repeated, seeking clarity.

My older brother Abdallah looked at me, then up at the sky, and said, “Ask him.”

It dawned on me that we were heading nowhere.

I wasn’t fully conscious, but I remember vividly having to jump onto the roof of that big old jeep because the car interior couldn’t fit all of us. Oh, I forgot to bring my Oud, but then I realized the space it takes would occupy the space of food we could survive on for six days, so we kept moving.

As we traveled, the sound of silence was overwhelming. I looked into the eyes of strangers, for eyes always tell everything. All I found was coldness, fear, confusion, and a profound sense of loss.

We finally reached the outskirts of Khan Younis, the major southern city, with a bustling clothing market. But just like the last six months of yesterdays, I kept hearing the sounds of bombings coming from its direction. Oh, that was their so-called limited military operation.

I still recall this journey to Khan Younis. It was the worst, most unimaginable horror I’ve ever seen: destruction everywhere. I could see the clothes of little boys and girls strewn across the rubble of destroyed houses and I wondered, did that child love ice cream or cotton candy more? Is he now alone or with his beloved mother and father? Was she amongst the names of those I’ve seen on the news, when I had the luxury of keeping up with the news?

Then I look at myself and realize one thing for sure, they were exactly like me, afraid of the darkness under the bed, and having done nothing to deserve all this horror.

Again, I look inside of me for strength to be patient, but then despite the fear of evacuation, I see the face of my little sister Habiba looking out the window of the jeep at a candy seller, her face expressing the innocence I wish the world could see. And I weep; I weep pouring out all my heart, with tears streaming down my face, and my body shaking.

Scene 2: Tent life

Time in our safari-like tent goes by so slowly for me and Abdallah, my older brother and companion in this shelter. It has made us very diligent and disciplined; we don’t oversleep, and we don’t pull all-nighters like we used to do.

Raed, our three-year-old neighbor in the next tent and our human alarm clock, always starts crying for no reason at 6 a.m., leaving us no choice but to get up early. As a result, by the end of the day, we find ourselves super tired and needing to sleep before 9 p.m.

During the day, we suffer from the heat of the blazing sun. However, unlike my brother Abdallah, I find it less intense because my skin has more of that melanin thing. I tell him, “Survival of the darkest.”

Scene 3: How my days are spent

I wake up every day, pick up some goods from a merchant living next to the tent, and walk a kilometer, dragging a cart filled with merchandise, until I reach the sea street. Yesterday, for example, I was selling cooking oil, roaming the crowded street filled with people from different regions of the Gaza Strip, calling out, “Five liters of oil only for 40 shekels… Come on, Habibi.” Suddenly, I turned towards the vast sea, stood still, watching the seagull flying, free. It reminded me of myself… Yes, it reminded me of me… This was me before this war.

Indeed, I remember myself, the self I had forgotten, I remember the words I said and those I didn’t say. I remember my flight over rivers and seas and oceans, my daily quest to extract enough freedom to keep me alive.

And then I recall my journey from Gaza to Egypt and then to America… where I attended Missouri State University as an exchange student and a student leader from Gaza. I studied among various cultures and represented mine. I cried, I danced, I celebrated. And fortunately I was handsome enough, charismatic enough — and lucky enough — to have a girlfriend. I excelled in living a life I had never known before, a life without a siege or material or ideological constraints. I learned how to make choices.

Oh, how sweet freedom is.

* * *

So this is me, the bird, but without wings, for war has devoured them.