They Gave Me a Shroud

Stuck. My feet are trapped in the mud. It spread across the camp’s grounds after the frigid night. Generous rains soaked the tents of the displaced, sinking them in shallow waters, like ships of old with sails beaten down by unmerciful storm winds.

As if I was not sufficiently burdened already, my leaden feet fight against me. Each time I try to lift one up, the other sinks deeper in the muck.

Children jumping between the tents draw my attention. They have something resembling happiness about them—like they’re dancing to drums only they can hear.

Their gaunt bodies are covered from head to toe in white waterproof jumpsuits designed to protect them from the biting cold and the coming rain.

In cold sunlight they press the mud with their small feet over and over. Back and forth they go as though this could lessen the wetness and speed up the drying process. As though this then would make their steps lighter, prevent them from toppling over and perhaps even rescue their white clothes from mud splatters.

The small group stops in the shadow of a tent that fought tooth and nail against the wind. By some miracle, it still stands. Perhaps it warms their pale features and tremulous hearts against what is to come.

I watch their short shadows lengthen and extend. The shadows break apart either on account of their confusion or the cruel wind battering what’s left of the camp.

The shadows stretch and spread across this earth that has absorbed the light and them and their shadows, all of them, in its soft mud.

Yet now the children make a game of the shadows and tents amidst the bursts of sunshine:

Their acrobatics grow increasingly wild

Their mischievous voices sing dahiya

Arm over shoulder they form a chain across the expanse separating one tent from the next.

Their rousing songs

Rousing yells

Rousing prayers

Rousing praise to God

Rousing cheers

All in spite of the tents and those who raised these tents and who donated these tents. In spite of the war and its instigators and the senders of these white shrouds.

Moving between the shadows in defiance of the mud they raise one of their group up on fragile shoulders like a groom, hailing him a martyr in anticipation of his death.

Translation from the Arabic