we are not numbers

emerging writers from Palestine tell their stories and advocate for their human rights

A handwritten letter that starts, "A letter for myself after one year" and opens "Dear Reem, how are you? I hope you'r doing well. Today, as I promised myself, I should have achived my dreams. So, did I keep my promise or break it? and...

A clothesline, an old letter, a smashed finger

Some incidents can make you lose hope in life – and some can help you find it.
young woman, Reem Sleem.
Reem Sleem
  • Gaza Strip
  • Diaspora
A desk with a mirror and some books on it.
Reem’s desk where she was reading the book that had a letter hidden in it. Photo: Reem Sleem

 

In the heart of Gaza, where the sky trembled with the sounds of explosions and the ground shook under the feet of its people, I sat under the dim moonlight, resting my head in my hand with a book in my other hand, trying to disconnect from the world around me and escape the grim reality for a little while.

The book was Dancing with Life. I used to read self-help books like this before the war, as they encouraged me to succeed and achieve goals. The book was about living with both the sweet and the bitter, so I felt it was an appropriate book to read during the war.

A question in the book stopped me: “When was the last time you felt grateful in your life?”

I answered to myself: What should I be grateful for in the midst of this war? Perhaps the only thing I feel grateful for is that I am still alive, and that God has chosen for me to live until this moment. This is despite the smell of death that I always sense near me, only four meters away where the neighbor’s house is. All its inhabitants were martyred, with only a few clothes left hanging on the clothesline.

That clothesline, whose sound always annoyed me. I would grumble whenever I found my neighbor hanging laundry on it in front of my bedroom window — where is she now? I wish she could come back from beneath the earth! How terrifying it is for me when someone I used to see and hear every day dies. Death could have chosen me instead of her, but it left me with life for a reason I still don’t understand.

I breathed a sigh and closed the book in despair. I began to recall my old memories when I was happy, trying to remember the taste of happiness. What did it taste like, I wonder.

A letter to my future self

A handwritten letter that starts, "A letter for myself after one year" and opens "Dear Reem, how are you? I hope you'r doing well. Today, as I promised myself, I should have achived my dreams. So, did I keep my promise or break it? and...
Reem’s letter to herself. Photo provided by Reem Sleem

As I was lost in my thoughts, a piece of paper fell from inside the book. I raised my eyebrows in surprise, picked up the paper, and read its contents.

It was a letter I had written to myself a year ago. I adjusted my sitting position to focus more on the reading; it seemed to contain important questions.

“Dear Reem, howre you? I hope you are doing well. Today, as I promised myself, I should have achieved my dreams. So, did I keep my promise or break it?”

I started reading the list of goals I was supposed to accomplish this year: improving my English, getting high grades, exercising, finding an internet-related job, making more friends, and so on.

I lamented my situation and what I had become. I had let myself down and achieved nothing… but how could I in the midst of the chaos, distraction, and destruction caused by this cursed war? I spent my year wandering from one house to another, fearing the sounds of rockets and bombs, grieving for my lost future.

I took a breath and let out a deep sigh to relieve some of the burden from my chest. I stood up and glanced stealthily at the window, my eyes falling on the neighbor’s house now inhabited by ghosts, feeling as if they were watching me every time I entered my room, as if plotting something against me.

I held up my mirror to see my lost identity — who am I? I am not the Reem I used to be. My face is pale, covered in gloom. Dark circles are drawn under my eyes, my lips are cracked, my hair is falling out copiously, and gray hair is starting to invade it even though I am only in my twenties!

Suddenly, time stopped. What felt like an earthquake violently shook the house, stormy smoke covered the surroundings, the suffocating smell of gunpowder spread quickly, and the terrified cries of people rose.

I did not grasp what was happening until I found myself running out of the house with my family, escaping death. My father shouted, “Run quickly before another rocket explodes!” We had no place to go that night except for my grandmother’s house, which was crowded with refugees like us! But there was no other option.

We spent several days at my grandmother’s house, during which I did not taste rest. We lived as if in the Stone Age, preparing food on firewood and washing our clothes by hand with little water that we bought with difficulty, spending the whole day listening to the news on my grandmother’s radio, which had been around for over twenty years.

My finger incident

On my last day at my grandmother’s house, I heard the crying of a small child. I went to see and found it was my brother who had been beaten by some of the mischievous children in the neighborhood. I took his hands and led him out of the room he was in, then stood at the door to warn the bullies not to repeat their actions.

But the mischievous kids didn’t listen to me; one of them came and slammed the door in my face, and then a shocking thing happened. I suddenly felt excruciating pain in my finger. I looked at it and found the door had tightly closed on it. I screamed with all my might, “My finger is bleeding! Open the door quickly!”

A female hand with a damaged middle fingernail.
Reem’s damaged middle finger, still healing, months after the accident. Photo: Reem Sleem

When the door opened, I saw that half of my finger was cut off! My blood pressure rose and I fainted from the severity of the shock. I came to, lying on the hospital bed and the doctor stitching up my middle finger without anesthesia. What on earth is happening to me?! I felt my soul being torn apart from the force of pain. I cried and screamed like I had never screamed before.

“Where is my nail?” I muttered amidst my tears and pain after I realized that my nail had been torn off from its roots.

“Don’t worry, the doctor will treat it,” my mother reassured me in a broken voice, a look of sadness covering her face.

We returned home after that incident, and I hated that cursed child and his family who defended him against me, causing me damage whose effects I still see to this day. I lost hope in life, and I no longer had the desire or passion to live.

My neighbor is alive!

A few days later, a stranger knocked on our door. My father went to greet the visitor, only to see the last person he expected to be alive. It was my neighbor! I gaped in shock and went to tell my mother. My mother was shocked when she saw her coming towards us to tell us that she was the sole survivor among her family members. She began to describe what happened to her during the shelling of her house by the Israeli occupation forces.

“I found myself flying in the sky from the force of the rocket explosion, but God chose for me to fall on a nearby building instead of falling to the ground and dying. My skull and neck were damaged, but I am still alive. As for my children and husband, God took them, and I am left with no one.”

She spoke calmly, with a slight smile drawn on her face. What a patient woman! Despite the severe trials and oppression she faced, she still smiled and praised God! I felt how trivial my own suffering was compared to her calamities. Although my finger was damaged, it would eventually heal, but her loss was immense and irreplaceable. She became both a widow and bereaved in one stroke.

My neighbor did not come to our house just to tell her painful story, but to make us appreciate the blessings we have and realize that our situation is much better than others’, even though we all suffer from the same conditions in this war. At least all my family members are safe, and that is enough.

From that moment on, I decided to fight for life and live despite everything, and discovered the strength within me to rise above the chaos and reach for the stars even when the world around me is collapsing. The war has taken a lot from me, but it has not stolen my soul.

Editor’s note: A version of this story was also published at Palestine Square.

Lisa Masri.
Mentor: Lisa Masri

recent

subscribe

get weekly emails with links to new content plus news about WANN