Glow worm
What I will read today is new and even for me it is, and not necessarily true. It’s just a special experience, no more than trying to answer myself why I’m going to wake up tomorrow.
I couldn’t write about hope in general, it would’ve been so much hypocrisy, so I decided to write about a moment of hope.
Germany, July 2021
It’s 2:00 a.m. now.
I’ve been cursing in my bed for two hours… Damn.
Looks like I won’t sleep anytime soon.
I got out of bed and went to the balcony looking for some calmness, it was a quiet, moonless night, looking at all the windows around me for some light sharing my loneliness, but no one here, it’s just me with my insomnia.
I say to myself: This calmness needs a cup of coffee.
I was interrupted by an intermittent light in front of a tree, almost invisible, and I thought at first that it was only my imagination, until it reappeared again and again, and at the moment my mind could explain that light; a cold shiver went all over my body.
Yes, it seems that someone shares my insomnia, it is that little creature once again performing its dance with confidence as if it knows the audience well, so there is no need to worry and hesitate.
For a moment that light took me to another place, a place I didn’t choose to be in, a place off the map, and out of the law.
I remember that night very well, it was so dark and moonless exactly like this night, but then I could hear the fear around me, hear their quick breath and their cold sweat, in that darkness I could see their exhausted fantasies, their empty bodies except from fear and hope.
There!
I had been sitting scared for more than two hours behind a bunch of trees, my feet were numb and I couldn’t feel them anymore, every now and then, I tried to recognize the faces around me and I can’t stop counting, one… two… three…, my mom was next to me, my sister in front of me and so much unknown around.
I don’t know exactly where we were, all I know is that we were on the border between two countries.
There!
I was trembling with fear to death until these creatures decided to perform their divine dance.
Yes, in the midst of all that darkness, in the midst of all that gloom, life decided to show me for the first time in my life that magical being, what message is this? What hope for someone who is so tired of hope?
I don’t know if you can imagine what I saw there, or even the impression it left on me.
Just watching their dance in front of me was enough to carve a scar I didn’t choose, but was the prettiest.
I completely forgot my fear and my breathing returned to normal, and I went back to my balcony and said in secret: Yes, this is hope!
Sandy Aeshou
Translation from Arabic by Marwa Melhem
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