Rawan Yaghi: From Beneath
From Beneath
by Rawan Yaghi, 17 years
I didn't even know if my eyes were open. After a big mess everything seemed so calm I could sense the dust covering my
face, the only part I could feel. I could feel my breath hitting one of the bricks of my room's floor. Air found its way
through everything surrounding my body. Silence was all I could hear. My arms trapped somewhere under the wooden edges
of my bed, my toes, my legs, my hair, they all were jailed and penalized not to move. I was afraid. I waited and waited
trying to recall all the joyful events in my life, as my mother once advised me to do so when I'm afraid, though they
were few: My elder brother's big wedding, my grandmother coming from Hajj and bringing me a singing doll, the last Eid
when I got my biggest Edeyya ever, my mother bringing us home a new baby after me - I wonder if that was a happy event
for me, but I could certainly see the joy my parents had looking at that little thing…
My breath firmly came back to my face, touching it as if to comfort me and tell me that everything will be ok. A minute
later I started crying, though. And only then I realized that my eyes were closed, for I could feel my wet eyelashes. It
did not matter; opening them and closing them were absolutely the same. I cried so much that my tears mixed with the
dust on my face, felt like mud at the edges of my face. I must have been bleeding, since a killing pain started growing
in my chest with the growing of my weeping. I tried to move in order to stop the pain. Only one muscle. I found out that
something very sharp, extremely strong, was calmly piercing my skin. I stopped crying. I waited. I bled.
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Rawan Nasser Yaghi, 17, from Gaza Palestine