"The war has ended, and it's time for me to return to my coffee, my bread and my poetry. Yet I don't know what it means to return to life, after death has lived within us down to the marrow. Death had us memorised by heart, reciting our names one by one with unwavering precision. We grew accustomed to it too, in all its forms and colours, until funerals became a daily ritual, much like a weather report we already know by heart."
"She touches its colours and explores its flavours with her tiny senses. Having grown up on lentils alone, since the day she was born, she now finds fruit and vegetables available in Gaza's markets with the ceasefire. When we handed her a banana, she didn't know what to do with it and tried to eat it with the peel on."
War has ended and people attempt to return to coffee, bread and poetry while grappling with how life resumes after pervasive death. Death became a daily presence, with funerals and destruction normalised. New battles unfold in the struggle to reclaim ordinary moments, traverse ruined roads, and repair memory and ritual. Communities repair dictionaries, restore morning habits, and seek calm on routes to school. Markets reopen and small discoveries emerge, as a child named Salam learns fruits and vegetables for the first time. Neighbours slowly return, set up tents on ruined foundations, and try to piece together daily life.
Read at www.theguardian.com
Unable to calculate read time
Collection
[
|
...
]