Where is mama?

Rafah

10:35 AM – June/2024

It was the same month in 2021 when the mother was widowed, but this year she carries the burdens of her fate and the heavy responsibilities of being both mother and father to her two bright children Alone, whose future seems to come in the blink of an eye.

As they started running out of food, she left her two children with a grim promise: “I’ll be back by 11:00AM. Don’t leave the house, no matter what.”

 

Those minutes stretched into hours, then nights, and finally weeks.

The children, their faces gaunt and eyes hollow, clung to their mother’s command.

They survived for weeks on a dwindling supply of tomatoes, cucumbers, crumbs of bread and salt.

Thanks to the clever little girl Amal (Hope), they decided to fast every day as if it were Ramadan, breaking their fast with tomatoes, salt, and the scant salty water. They even saved some morsels for the mother who never returned, saying she would be tired and hungry when she got back.

The salty water from the full tanks was barely drinkable, but it was all they had, and their bodies grew weaker as time went on.

Airstrikes and tank missiles were dropping everywhere, the little boy couldn’t sleep in his bed and joined his sister as they started exchanging night talks under the moonlight coming from the crack of a window, holding each other tight whenever they hear something falling from the sky, as if it’s their last moment alive.

When the crumbs were gone and there was no water left in the tap, they realized their mom is not coming back, the two children decided to break the promise they had made to their mother not to leave the house.

They stepped into a world of emptiness and destruction, seeking solace amidst the Odd surroundings, with drones buzzing overhead and the burning sunlight bearing down on them.

Waseem (gorgeous) the 7-year-old, stops walking then asks his older sister Amal, who is 11, "Is that the smell of raw eggs, or am I just hungry?" Amal, realizing that her brother is oblivious to the pervasive smell of TNT and explosions, reluctantly tells him the truth: "That's the smell of the explosions we've heard all night for the past month. Don’t you remember how our dad died and the civil forces who dug us out of our old house? How can you not recall any of that? Do you really not remember anything?"

As they were talking, the ground shook with the approach of a Giant Metal Beast coming towards them, the engine’s Roar is enough to give an Adult a heart attack.

The boy cowered behind his sister, his small frame shaking with terror.

The girl stood defiantly in front of the tank hugging her brother and giving her back to the tank, her instinct told her everything.

She puts her brother behind her back, the anger of years about what happened to her dad and facing who did that, fear, anger and desperate last tears turned into words.

“Where is my mom?”

She shouted, her voice piercing through the heavy silence.

The tank halted, its massive turret swiveling slowly.

The girl’s gaze remained fixed on the looming machine, her hope fading into a Dark, Oppressive Void as she united with her family.