Shortly before the war, when we heard rumors about protests and didn’t understand what was happening, I was young. There was a small, fierce war inside me, an illogical war for an eleven-year-old girl, because it was a battle between the unknown and the known represented by my immature mind. The unknown was something growing inside me, trying to take over… I only realized much later that this thing was femininity, and I didn’t understand that its presence required a battle, not because it was difficult to grasp, but because the world I grew up in tried, in various ways, to mold it into a trivial form, like a porcelain statue of a bland smiling girl. She, however, was fierce and stubborn like a basalt statue.
Unfortunately, the first gunshot coincided with the awakening of my teenage flame. I used to love walking and refused to take the bus to school, as walking was akin to a ritual for me. The path to school passed through several turns, changing from a quiet neighborhood with trees and flowers to a bustling market followed by a chaotic street that eventually turned into a more civilized market, finally arriving at the school afterwards.
I traversed these stages as if on a journey, using all my senses to memorize the way. I never forgot the morning air’s scent, the sound of buses carrying children to school, the cool breeze that made my body shiver in summer and winter alike, a distant gunshot, and many strange smells. But what was unforgettable was the wandering faces of people in the void, warning of imminent danger. I was too young to understand any ominous signs.
Fear of Walking in Damascus
After the explosion in the Qazaz area, my mother refused to let us walk to school. I was already very afraid to walk again because I had been harassed on my way back alone. However, I feared telling her lest she forbid me from walking. My brother returned with his friends while I often returned alone or with my friends, but unfortunately, that day I returned alone. That incident passed by accidentally, and I didn’t understand its impact on me until years later. I dealt with it and my femininity in the harshest way, punishing myself by depriving it of itself, burying my femininity in a box because I preferred my freedom over it. How could I return home by bus? Absolutely not. No one would know about my disappointment. Afterward, I gradually became a collector of war remnants and fragments, wearing wide jeans and cutting my long shiny hair in a small act of rebellion, but it was only a cry for help.
On the day of the Qazaz explosion in Damascus, I remember we ran home, rushing with frightened schoolchildren. My brother and I thought of a way to protect our house from subsequent explosions, so we pushed the couch towards the door to secure it and hid in the closet, keeping with us some pieces of pears. I don’t remember eating those pears that day, but I remember feeling motherly towards my brother, as if I had to protect him. I was terrified of the war, but my brother laughed at it, so I suppressed my fear and laughed with him. I couldn’t be afraid of war, nor of the harassers! Later, when he went with his friend to collect shell fragments and bullet casings, some soldiers stopped and expelled them, but fortunately, they returned that day.
My brother enjoyed collecting war remnants, so I began collecting them too, but I wasn’t happy about it. It was a hobby for many children in Syria, but my hobby was walking and listening to the sound of gunfire and explosions, trying to distinguish between the sound of bombs and rockets, which ones were being launched and which ones were falling on people’s heads.
I always failed to hear the shells falling nearby when I was asleep. I remember my father saying, “A shell fell near Al-Hara neighborhood. Thank God you were asleep, Baba; you didn’t feel anything.”
War… An Inaccessible Plain
Sadness overcame me when they said, “You didn’t feel a thing.” With all my heart, I wished I could feel more of the war. It was both near and far from me. We weren’t directly affected by the war; my family tried to shield us from harm by avoiding TV channels, political discussions, and residential areas, and they largely succeeded.
Our home seemed to have a protective dome against bullets. When classmates talked about shards and bullets piercing their windows, I had no story. Every day I walked, hoping to somehow catch a bullet or shard in my body. I needed to feel that sensation when war pierces your body and leaves a scar.
I wished I had been shot instead of being harassed in the deserted street. What a trivial, shameful story that was—being accosted by a man who then vanished after I pushed him away and fled! I couldn’t tell such a story. What if they misunderstood it? What if they blamed my attire or my walk? I longed to tell a story, an exciting story about war only, about gunpowder and bullets! Maybe I wanted to feel as a child that I was part of something bigger than myself, as I was drowning in my solitude and secrets, with defeats no one knew about.
My dream was realized in the most ridiculous way possible after a long wait. On one of my journeys to the institute during the final days of school and the years of the last shells, I heard commotion and a stone fell on my hand as if someone had thrown it at me. I stopped to pick up the stone, and there was a tiny shard, like a chickpea, leaving a small burn mark on my hand, as if someone had extinguished a cigarette on it. In that moment, I saw people running, so I ran with them. A shell had fallen very close by that time. I didn’t hear its sound that time, but I felt an unparalleled excitement! Here I was, running with people, sharing their feelings of fear and anxiety, hiding under the shade of a strange shop that welcomed us so eagerly. Here I was, joining them in discussing the horrors of shells and the shard that burned my hand, and the small fear I fabricated. They wished me safety and looked at the silly burn on my hand as if it were a deep wound, unconcerned that it resembled nothing more than a cigarette burn, but feeling it as a collective wound that had struck us all.
The Shard that Saved Me from Shame
Finally, after seven years of war, the gods of war blessed me with a bloody sacrifice, finally branding me with fire. Only then did I become Syrian by identity. To be Syrian means to deliberately dwell in tears and fire, to proudly utter the word “revolution” or not utter it at all, to spit on the asphalt and kiss old stones. That tiny shard saved me from the shame of having no story and became my identity and birth certificate.
As for my little tale hidden from my mother, I never told it at all. It continued to grow inside me parallel to my disfigured femininity. Today, I realize it was a war scar larger than a cigarette burn, if only I had felt at that time that it was not just my war alone. Today, I understand that the war was completely incomprehensible to us all. We all thought it was just fire and gunpowder. Afterward, I don’t know if anyone seriously considered what would come after the war, but I’m sure everyone wanders with the same emotions. Memories of the wandering faces return to me every day—those faces I saw at the beginning of the war are all around me, broken faces carrying a great defeat and several small defeats in their eyes known only to them.
I still find some joy in my little story, which has become a joke when I talk about the war. But no one realized that I am still proud of it, that it is a badge on my chest and a memory that will never be erased. It made me feel that I am part of my sad and disfigured homeland!
