I am two months old, or so claims the one who is currently penning my existence. Devoid of a name or occupation, I lack both knowledge and understanding. If it weren’t for this teacher or writer—referred to as Einstein in schools, due to his unruly hair rather than his genius—I wouldn’t have spoken a word. Now, he requires me to be an anonymous hero in his weekly column for a newspaper called Al Ayyam.

I have no language. I don’t even know the name of the woman in whose womb I’m currently living. And the world outside this lady’s womb is unfathomable. I hear terrifying voices, and I don’t know whose they are. A violent and swift sound falls from the sky. Immediately after, I hear the screams of women and children, the weeping of men, shattering walls, and falling roofs. A few seconds later, the sounds fade or completely disappear. Then come the voices of men pulling others out of the rubble. Sometimes, no one comes. The silence grows oppressive. I can’t see or smell anything.

"Can you please grant me the ability to see and smell? Then, using these senses, maybe I could figure out what’s happening? Just half a minute, agreed?" I asked my writer.

Afterward, I found myself endowed with the glorious powers of sight and smell. My eyes saw things I couldn’t understand: dust-covered people under rubble, some of them barely moving, while others were dead. Scattered objects filled the landscape: clothes, toys, canned food, sacks of flour, milk bottles, food, kitchen utensils, books, doors, shattered glass, plastic chairs, sofas, carpets. A pleasant scent wafted toward me, but I didn’t recognize it. "What is this lovely smell, my writer?" I wondered.

"It’s the smell of the lady’s hands."

"Writer, I’m hungry. I didn’t feel this way a month ago. What’s going on?"

"Well, homes are out of food, which is certainly going to affect you. The lady doesn’t eat much, but she’s doing her best to find food here and there to keep you healthy," he explained.

I asked the one who was writing me into existence: "What’s happening outside the lady’s womb?"

"You’re not supposed to know. You’re simply an unborn child. It’s enough for you to be confused, scared, curious. In a few months, you’ll enter the world, grow up, and then you can ask the great lady herself about what happened," the writer said.

The lady carrying me in her belly walked with shaky footsteps as she moved from place to place, uttering incomprehensible prayers. I could almost sense her presence when she sighed and moaned in pain. She wept loudly, begging God to protect her family and the baby inside her. "Is she talking about me? I don’t know who this patient lady is, the one who keeps moving from place to place. And why is she holding onto me with such patience and determination? What makes me so important to her? And whose voices are around her?"

"Those are the voices of your brothers and sisters," my writer answered.

"Where is she heading now?"

The rhythmic clip-clop of the horses’ hooves echoed, and, from the sky, an unceasing sound filled my ears. I kept hearing the name of a street—Salah ad Din Street—joined to the word "south." Guided by my writer, I guessed that whenever harrowing things fell from the sky, my mother moved to a different place. This happened again and again. Who was chasing and terrifying this lady, who the writer identified as my mother?

"Why aren’t you revealing everything to me? Why not grant me the capacity to comprehend and narrate the story, so you can relax and vanish, instead of relying on my questions and your answers? What is there to lose? You’re the cunning puppeteer of your protagonists’ fates. Don’t say that I can’t do much because I’m an embryo. You’re a writer, capable of manipulating age, time, and events."

"Why the hurry for understanding? I’m worried what would happen if you acquired this knowledge," my writer cautioned.

The body of the lady carrying me in her belly had grown still. I now heard the echo of: Rafah, An Nawasi, border, canned food, flour, tent. Suddenly, the enigmatic writer vanished. Where are you, my writer? Please come back. I have only two questions: "Why can’t I hear or feel my mother moving anymore? And where am I?"

*

I won’t appear to him again. As he grows up, he’ll learn the truth—he’ll realize that he’s in the incubator of a small hospital, inside a kind of hell. And the great lady who was once constantly moving is now motionless, in a place from which she will never return.

    

Ziad Khaddash is a Palestinian short-story writer, born in Jerusalem in 1964. He has published twelve short story collections. He started his career as a high school teacher, teaching Arabic language and literature. He received the Award in Literature for the State of Palestine, and was shortlisted for the Multaqa prize for short fiction in 2015. He participated in festivals and literary events in several countries, including the World Story Forum in Istanbul, Bashir Talmudi Cultural Festival in Tunisia, International Poetry Festival in Manama, in addition to reading and panels in Dubai, Casablanca, Tunis and Beirut. You can read more about his writing at the LEILA website.

Victoria Issa is a writer and translator based in Amman, Jordan. She is an aspiring literary translator who works between Arabic and English. She translated short stories and poems, and recently a full-length novel. She’s currently a mentee at the National Centre for Writing’s Emerging Translator Mentorships 2024.