Little dreams
22 February 2024
I don’t dream of going back home anymore; it is obviously impossible. Home is only 35 km from Rafah, but passing through the Inferno of Dante looks easier than reaching my home. So, I gave up this dream.
Meeting my daughter in Egypt is also another impossible dream. How can I secure $20.000 to pay the bribe for the Egyptians to let me out of Gaza with my wife and my mother? So, I gave up and I accept calling her by phone or via WhatsApp every few days.
I don’t dream of proper health treatment for my mother while the health system in Gaza has been systematically destroyed, and hospitals are barely able to treat the thousands of injured people. So, l accept treating her at home without proper examinations or blood tests, heart scans, blood pressure tests or chest X-rays. For the time being, she is better.
I don’t dream of waking up in my bed, going out to walk my dog, and returning to prepare myself to go to my job, my office. l accept living in an apartment with nothing but a mattress, blanket, some clothes, and a few kitchen items.
I don’t dream of planning a holiday out of Gaza with my wife and my daughter in the summer. Instead, I accept whatever comes, unable to take any decision in my life as life itself is not guaranteed at all.
My dream now is to see a ceasefire, an end to the killing, bombing frozen, and children’s fears of airstrikes and shelling behind us.
I dream to be able to secure our daily food, whatever food.
I dream of securing a tent in case we are displaced another time, because there is no other place to go any more, and wherever we go, we will need a tent.
I dream!! In fact, I don’t dream. I lost the ability of dreaming I lost a big part of me. Not death, but for sure, not a life. Just living through what comes and what I am forced to go through, day by day, uncertain of anything.
Uncertainty is the enemy of dreams.