The ice is Black

Author's Note

In the name of Allah who is the most merciful and the most beneficient. The almighty and the one and only who blessed me with the power to write and bring this piece of art to you.

I hope this note finds you in the best of your health and fitness but while hoping this, I also hope that you are not the same person after completing this book the way you were before
starting it.

I am however not sure if you now believe in the ideology that ‘The ice is Black’ but I hope you are now taking a deeper look on your self pity attitude with your broken, fragile self which
keeps telling you that you are a survivor when you always
deserved to be a Livor.

I created this terminology when I realized that life is not about surviving it’s actually about living. Survival is never our choice. Survival is what we have to accept by will or by force but living is our choice. There is a difference between living and staying
alive please differentiate it well after you have finished reading
‘The ice is Back’.

To address the above mentioned ideology that discourages a self
pity survivor and encourages a Livor I chose to narrate this story through ‘Life’ itself and I hope many of you find it intriguing and unique. Now coming to the title I have a short story to narrate but I’ll narrate it like Elif who keeps saying, ‘long story short’...!

About three years ago I was travelling with my maternal grand parents from my home to theirs for vacation. I prepared my second prof exams at their place.

My grand father was driving and my grand mother was sitting beside him. I took the back seat. My brain was so occupied with thoughts that I couldn’t help thinking about random things like life, world, dreams, time, and illusions that we come across everyday.

I was thinking what is true for me is not true for others, I was thinking what is the most important to me is the least others would want, I was thinking what is gain for me is loss for others
at times which means everything is an illusion and nothing can be regarded as fact. I was thinking if a palestinian child is victim of cruelty and yet he is labelled as terrorist by Israelis and the
supporters of Israel then the facts are so unjust the difference in opinion ruins the history and the truth itself.
I was composing those random thoughts in my poetic mind when
my eye fell on a card hanging near the windscreen of my grand father’ car.

The card read ‘Black ice’ and that was the point where I could put all my thoughts in a nutshell that whatever I find real is as unreal for many of you out there, the world is an illusion and
here sadness is as fake as happines. There exist no facts and history is also as liable to be changed or untrue as our present is. For instance as mentioned above, to me Palestinians aere
miserable but if you ask an Israeli he would even call a five years old palestinian, a terrorist. So difference in opinion makes me reconsider how can we say what is fact, is fact and not
someone’s opinion imposed on us as a well revealed history? So is the ice that is Black.

This was the defining moment where I decided I’ll write a book addressing this ideology and I will title it as ‘The ice is Black’ and Alhumdulillah you can see today after three years this fifteen
months long journey ended and I came up with this piece of writing.

Another important thing I’d like to mention before ending up with this author’s note is Izzat’s pendant which was mentioned in the story. It was actually inspired by a true event. It was Ahad Tamimi who once said in an interview to BBC that she is wearing the bullet shells in a chain by which her loved ones were shot saying, ‘we create death out of life’. So if you find this
copied then please consider it inspired by real life scenario instead of using the word ‘copied’.

Also Khair Un Nisa’s character is inspired by Razan Al Najar the Plaestinian nurse who was shot near the border fence and passed away. In the story Khair Un Nisa stays alive but the real inspiration behind the character was Razan Al Najar. The
inhuman killing of Razan Al Najar was one big reason that I couldn’t help myself on holding any longer on the idea of writing a book regarding Israel-Palestine conflict. One last but not the least this book is dedicated to humanity and that’s what various characters and Life itself tried to reveal. One big purpose of this book was to highlight the Israel-Palestine conflict and no one could narrate it better than Life itself.

I know for my readers it was a roller coaster ride to all the sensitive issues writers usually are afraid to tackle in one book but I believe this book had the potential to carry the burden so well with it’s unique theme and it somehow succeeded as well the rest you will decide which place this book occupies in your heart.

I hope this book, the story, the poems, and all those meetings Life had with all those factors that usually effect human life stays with you forever.

Remember me in dua.

With love,

~Akasious