Can’t Sleep
August 13, 2012
I open my eyes. I wake up a teenager in my grandmother’s old flat in the Aziziyeh, a district close to Aleppo’s downtown and Old City. The lively bustle only three floors below punctures my half-awaken state — all hot, sweaty and despondent. I simultaneously curse the honking cars and admire the musical rhythm of the relentless licorice seller whose presence every morning reminds me that I’m in one of the world’s oldest inhabited cities. My grandmother the early bird is outside on the balcony collecting the laundry she hanged out to dry after her early morning prayers. I open the shutters, pull up a stool and sit beside her. I’ve spent most of my summer vacation on this balcony, studying the details of the narrow view it provides me. There is the neighbor feeding the pigeons again, there is the businessman’s fancy Mercedes parked in the same spot as usual, and there is the slipper-clad boy who runs the businessman’s errands washing the pavement in front of the businessman’s office (and only in front of his office).
My teenager cousin wakes up in my grandmother’s new flat in the suburbs of the city. Only a few days ago she woke up in her home in the Martini, a neighborhood close to the university. Her home there is now empty. As the food in the freezer slowly begins to thaw, it emits signs of abandonment — signs of a previous life that belonged to your average, urban family of five: mother, father, two sisters blooming into their teenage years, and one over-active and mischievous younger brother. Though they love their small and centrally-located apartment, their fear drives them to leave it behind for the time being. It is no longer safe. Snipers now occupy the rooftops of nearby elementary schools, which in their summer slumber also silently whisper a tale of abandonment. Every now and then, as mortars fall on rooftops of innocent bystanders my cousin is reminded that a war is being waged outside her grandmother’s home, which now shelters two other families.
I close my eyes. A veil of darkness sweeps over the city. I am being followed by the men in black. With nothing but my feet to aid me, I run…and run…and run for my life. But my mind races with worry and concern for my loved ones. I turn a corner in the dimly-lit corridor of an abandoned building.I am lost in a yellow haze. Another man dressed in black comes running at me. I quickly turn another corner. Suddenly, I break free from the building, I am back on the streets. I narrowly escape, just like the movies. Tonight, I made it out alive. But where is my mother? Where is my father?
I open my eyes. I wake up from a lazy cat-nap on an arm chair in my parent’s home in San Diego. Another warm, sunny afternoon. “America’s finest city.” My grandmother sits across from me, clutching her white prayer beads. Her green eyes are turning gray with exhaustion. We listen to the sounds weaving through the web of gunfire and of men frantically wording information so that their anonymous viewers can one day know the truth: on this day, at this time, in this neighborhood, a massacre took place. It gets hard to listen to the sound of souls abandoning bleeding bodies on gray pavement, so I walk out of the room and head for the door. On my way out, I pause to admire the peace and quiet of this conservative middle-class neighborhood. I breathe a sigh a relief, a breath of despair…how easy it is to abandon this televised reality.
