i still remember how we used to
run around in circles as though we couldnt stop, how we suckle sweets large enough to contain our mouths. i still remember how you’d bring food to my mouth, how you’d pull your hand away as i opened my mouth, how youd watch me grab your wrist and dig my incisors into your fingers knowingly, how youd stare at me lovingly, before picking up my hand putting it into yours, and how you’d pull it out and shout eww! and how i’d laugh till i cried. i still remember how youd lead me in Solah even when we’re angry with each other, and how id plan to stand up immediately after the teslim, but how youd recite a couple of verses about forgiveness, and how i’d known that you aren’t ordering me to seek yours, but you’re hoping that i know you’re seeking mine. i still remember how i’d shout at you, and you’d shout at me, and id shout back and smash a vase, and how i’d walk out, and how i’d return to meet the mess cleared up. i still remember how you’d storm out of the house in anger, and how i’d call you to bluntly remind you of the groceries, and how youd gruffly say ok, then gruffly ask how i’m doing. i still remember when id call you when you’re at work and you’d pick up to hear me reciting a surah, and how i’d stop midway, and how youd continue the surah until i told you to stop. i still remember how you reddened when you saw our first child the first time, and how i ended up comforting him as well as you to stop crying. i still remember how youd be me and id be you for one day, and how youd end up being me perfectly well at home while i had to call you every thirty minutes on how to be you at the office without freaking out. i still remember how the boom sounds had had us running out, and how youd run back in to carry our second child, and how you never came out because our neighbour’s house got bombed and our house got bombed with it. i still remember being thrown across the street by the explosion, and how i’d stood up to see that our baby whom id been carrying in the holder strapped to my belly had smashed his delicate head when I landed on my stomach, and i was now covered in his blood. i still remember how i’d stared in confusion at the lifeless body in the holder, and how the shouts of hasbunallahu wa ni’mal wakeel rang in the air as the chanters ran about in search for cover. i still remember how the words had made no sense to me at that moment, how my brain had been unable to process the meaning of the prayer even though i’d been saying it everyday since my childhood. i still remember the horror on our neighbours face when he ran past saw me in that state, and how he’d run back and asked of you and our other child, and how id been unable to reply, and how another drone had begun approaching, and how he’d yanked off the holder and its occupant from my body and pulled me into a frantic run quickly enough to prevent us both from being thrown across the street again by another bomb blast.
i still remember remember watching a badly shot video on YouTube of me standing in the middle of a pile of wood and blocks with other people running away around me, and how the videographer had zoomed in the video of my baby with a mashed head, and my stunned face, and how he was shouting inna lillahi wa inna ilayhi rajiuun in the background, crying like a child that had lost its mother. i still remember watching that video over and over, until i’d memorised every sound and face in the video “mother frozen in shock as she stares at dead baby.”
i still remember picking up the pen and paper to write this…whatever it is. what i don’t remember…. is why
#FreePalestine
Aishat Elusogbon
