excerpt
The surviving crows, the ones in full gear, the ones who don’t miss a wing or a
tail, a leg or an eye, show themselves shyly, just as the people do, one by one from the
corners of the fallen buildings or from under a piece of sheet metal that was part of a
roof, trying to claim their territory in this demolished house or yard. They come out
searching for a body or for the revenge they cannot take. From the half-fallen walls of
the houses, they come out as if on parade, as if to make fun of man’s madness and his
illogical logic; they come out shyly—shyly like the people, to take charge of this body
or the other. Crows know how to survive devastation and war. Perhaps, for that
reason, they are always dressed in black, as if to remind everyone of death and his
black attire, as if to remind everyone of the color of the widow’s dress or the badly
attired priest or perhaps the attire of the curse that has come to this land. The people
wish they could be like the crows who know how to find value in things that others
don’t want and justice in things men don’t understand. They survive in every
well-placed catastrophe, in every well-destroyed city block; yes, people wish they
could be survivors of this calamity, the same as the crows. They wish they could be
survivors of this death, the same as the other calamity ten years ago.
For that reason they come out of the huts one by one, shyly—shyly, like the crows
and the rodents, to claim their bitter share of the sun. No one will ever take this away
from them. Not the bomb nor the cannon shell, neither the self-propelled drone that
buzzes like an angry fly in the air. This is their bitter share of the sun and it is incised
deep in the soil of their homes and in the soil of their souls. This is, after all, their sun,
despite the missiles and the rifles aiming at them. This is what they are left with, and
no one dares to take it away from them. No one dares take their sun because it just
cannot be done. This is their sun and this is their land, and these are their homes,
despite how they stand in half-drunkenness. No one will ever take these away from
them.
Talal sees himself walking in the narrow street as he tries to identify one corpse
from the other. Have you ever noticed how dead people look alike? Where is he? This
must be his house; what have they done to it? He screams with all the might of his
lungs, “What have you done to it?”
There, before him, lie their two bodies. He gets closer; fast breathing and
sweating. He knows this corpse, he knows the other, also; faster breathing and more
sweat. This is the corpse of the one he once called Father. This is the corpse he once
called Mother. What are they, now? Ash, ash, ash.
“No, no, no,” he yells, with all the might of his soul.
Talal is awake; Emily hugs him and asks, “What is it, my sweet Talal?” The
worry is obvious on her face.
Hellenic Canadian Literature 