They? | Wattys2017 |1st Place #gazawritesback|

Chapter 3

I guess people felt that it was safe enough to move after an hour of standing in the same positions looking at the trail that their cars left behind, because after some time a man walked up to us holding a small paper in his dusty hands.

"Assalamualaikum"

"Waalaikumassalam"

"This letter is for you"

"Thank you, do you know who sent it?" asked my mother, while I stood beside her

"No, I don't know his name, but he had turquoise eyes with the typical brown eyes and hair"

Well for me I froze at the word 'turquoise' and from the expressions that were shown on my mother's face she was the same, why we paused at that word? Well turquoise is a rare colour to be seen on a Palestinian.

My mother took the letter from the man and held it for a long time, reading it over and over again, the way her eyes ran over each word feeling their meaning in her vain I started to get curious and took the letter from her:

The importance of a kufiyah, were the only words written on the fine paper, Confusion overcame me as I turned it over to the other side to find something else.

But I didn't.

But then I did.

I started to look at the last thing my father gave me, turning it over more than once, trying to find what my father was pointing and then I did.

A key, so small was sewn in it, a key for what? I didn't know, but it was a key all the same.

I tried what my father had said when he gave it to me, "if I don't come back and a man comes, you'll find me there" I didn't understand at that time.

But know I did.

Leading my family to the old city I used to call home, I walked past houses that were destroyed and bodies that were laying on the ground lifeless, reaching my old house, I took the key out of my pocket and went to the back of the house with my family on my tail, tears filling my eyes, but I didn't refuse them, no I let the fall, in silence.

I reached the small cave behind my house, went in and found the door that stood for years, from before even my parents were born, found the lock, and I knew that what was in my hand and what was on the door were meant to be, so I placed them together, and they opened the path we were going to take, but it wasn't as I had expected I didn't find a small home, that we could use.

Instead I found my dad in a pool of blood.

Where he lay under a gun.

That was carried by one of them.

That's when all the hatred for them grew, but I knew I had to get my sister out of here, she couldn't see. But all the sense had gone and I started to charge to the thing with the gun.

I didn't stand a chance. So you probably expected what happened, I was taken, not to a beach to have fun or a playground to swing and slide or a skate park to use a handmade skateboard, no it was totally different, I was held by the collar of my shirt put in the back of a truck with the rest of my family screaming out my name, yelling, sending shivers down the spines of the people who had hearts and maybe it did send shivers down the spines of heartless but I guess they just ignored it, they took me to a place called 'jail', and the problem is it's for no reason at all.

But I'll always remember the words my mother said once to my aunty after she lost her mother "Allah always takes something away from you only to give you something better in return"

You see what we live through, and the problem is the rest of the world calls us terrorists.

Who are 'they'? They're the Israelis.

p'f