Khadijah stood up as she finished tying her shoelaces. Feeling her fingers getting numb, she quickly put them inside her coat. Turning to look at the remains of what used to be her home, she sighed heavily.
“There is nothing left there, hurry up now,” Khadijah turned at the voice and noticed that her brother had already started walking. Taking another deep breath, she felt her shoe crush the little snowflakes on the ground, just like how her heart was being crushed.
This land was just a piece of land for the world leaders, a land which they had destroyed, a land that only deserves discussions on TVs. She scoffed at this thought.
There are no more discussions now. This place has vanished from the world map and exists only when they have to bomb it. But to her, it was her home, a place where she was born and a place that meant more to her than just bombshells. She looked at her brother, who was covered in just a big coat that he managed to find and whispered Allhamdullilah, for she was glad to have him.
Yusuf tugged his coat closer to his fragile body as his lips quivered in the cold weather. He only wanted to think about protecting his little sister, but he couldn’t help but think about that night. He remembers holding his mother’s lifeless head in his small palms as he hastily tried to fix her scarf.
He remembered the blood on her earrings and blood on his hands. His trembling voice calling her out. How her name slipped his lips like prayers. He remembers the sound of an explosion and running around to locate Khadijah and his father, hoping that they were alive, praying that he had a shoulder to cry on.
How Khadijah’s distant sobs made him run around like a maniac, only to find his father’s crouched body over her. He remembers her scared eyes and his father’s blood-soaked clothes. Him taking his sister in his arms, and looking around to find fire, chaos and blood all around him.
He remembers falling on his knees to remove his mother’s gold earrings from her ears, her bangles, her chain. His trembling hands caressing her icy cold lips, her frozen eyes. He remembers shaking with fear as he reached his father’s pocket to take out the number of a smuggler who would take them to Turkey for money. To safety.
“Ya Allah, rehem (Oh God, mercy),” Yusuf muttered as he clenched the paper and jewellery in his sweaty hands and turned back one last time to seize the memory of a burning life etched deep in his heart. Yusuf became a man that day. One that he never hoped he would, to walk over bodies, to not being able to mourn his parent’s death, to watch his city burn.
Yusuf’s thoughts took a back seat when he noticed that the footsteps following his had suddenly stopped. Tensed, he hurriedly turned only to find Khadija petting a cat. “Brother, look! It’s a cat. Look, she made it too (through the destruction).”
“Yeah, I can see. Just a second.” He takes out a camera and clicks a picture of Khadijah and the cat. “Now come on, move, we don’t have time for this, come, quick. We’ve to reach in time.” He signals her to come to him. Khadijah makes a face. Yusuf is now assertive. “Khadijah, we’ll be late. We really have no time for this love. Come.”
“Can we at least keep her brother? Look, she loves me!” Khadijah pleads. “Dear, I just have enough food for two, and we won’t be allowed to take her with us anyway. Khadijah, just come alright? There’s just too much at risk,” Yusuf grew impatient with every passing minute.
Khadijah scoffs and lets the cat go. “Farewell, little one,” she whispers to the feline.
“Oh, what have we done, brother? Now who will take care of her in this hell?” Khadijah covers her face in disbelief.
“Allah will take care of her.” He hands her the camera as he drags his sister away. The rest of the journey is quiet, as Khadijah is clearly upset with her brother for abandoning the cat.
“Such ruthlessness is not to be expected of us, brother. What is the difference between us and them?” she asks. “We don’t kill, Khadijah,” Yusuf calmly answers.
Both of them held hands as they walked hastily until Khadijah’s feet stumbled over a shoe. She immediately looked up and started looking around. She paused at the sight when she saw a few bodies piled up on the side. She looked up at her brother, who was horrifically looking at the scene.
They exchanged glances as Khadijah noticed one of her school friend Idrees’s body among the deceased. Khadijah cried out his name as Yusuf held her back.
“Sabr (Patience).” He held her in his arms and kissed her head. Khadijah’s eyes welled up in tears as her brother loosened his grip. She looked up at him as he bowed his head for a quick prayer. She raised her hand for the same.
Alas, there was never any time in Syria to mourn the dead. The pair continued their journey in silence when Yusuf heard his sister sob on his sleeve. “For how long will we live like this, brother? When will this end?” Yusuf turned around and sat on the ground. He held his little sister’s hand and said, “You remember what father said? ‘This war shall end soon, and you, my kids, will see the end of it’.”
Khadijah hung her head in dismay. “We are going to get out of it, Khadijah. I am going to get us out. You are all I’ve got. We will go somewhere safe. We will start a new life.” Khadijah looked up at her brother and sobbed, “Is that why you gave all our money and jewellery to the smugglers, brother?”
Yusuf smiled, “YES to get us out. To safety. The world is nothing like it is here, Khadijah. You will love it.”
After a long journey, when their legs started trembling, they finally met the smugglers who put them in an abandoned building where they had to spend the night. It was raining heavily that night and it was very cold. Yusuf tried hard to keep his sister warm, but when he couldn’t find anything, he burnt the only pair of shoes he had in the hope of providing some relief to his little sister.
Suddenly the smugglers woke all of them up, it was the dead of the night and they were to cross the border now. Khadijah asked her brother how he could find something to burn in that abandoned building. Yusuf secretly thanked God for his father’s long overcoat, which hid his missing shoe as he smiled broadly.
They walked through the jungles for hours. It was cold and dark, and all of them walked with a haunting silence. It was snowing heavily and with her hair and clothes covered in snowflakes, Khadijah took out her camera and filmed as she spoke, “My feelings as I leave this place is like preparing for burial after death. I will leave my home without a soul. My soul will stay here. What cost am I buying my freedom at?”
She turned the camera towards herself as a teary-eyed Khadijah whispered, “And at this cost, is it freedom at all?”
They finally reached a car, fighting with trees and snow and struggling to be as low profile as possible. They were hurried in the car as they struggled to breathe, stacked up like cattle’s in it.
The car suddenly stopped as they heard Turkish soldiers yelling through their loudspeakers: “Stop! Everybody stop.”
Suddenly there was the clatter of machine-gun fire, and there was chaos all around. In quick events of moving and pushing, Khadijah’s hand got snatched away from her brother’s. She desperately tried to locate him, and within seconds as she lay eyes on him, she saw that he had been hit. He fell to the ground as Khadijah rushed to him.
She sat down with his head on her lap as people were running, trying to escape bullets all around. The smugglers screamed at her to throw herself on the ground to escape the bullets, but she couldn’t move. Yusuf blinked through the blood and barely managed to mutter, “Khadijah, down. Get down.”
Khadijah had tears running down her face as she looked at his feet and saw the missing shoe. She smiled and caressed his hair.
“Khadijah, get down,” Yusuf struggled to breathe. “No,” Khadijah whispered.
“See you soon, brother,” she smiled as Yusuf suddenly became motionless. Khadijah kissed her brother’s forehead and lay her face on his head as the voice around her started to fade.
“Freedom at last!” she sighed as a bullet hit her head and blood dripped down her face and fell on Yusuf’s pale cheeks.