Shadows Far Away

2004

CHAPTER 1:

LUCY (10 YEARS OLD)

The light of the last rays of sun is shining brightly on the bare land, recently hit by war. I am sitting in the corner of road on a cut down tree trunk. I can see the blood stains all over the place, which wasn’t like this before. As it is getting dark I get up, and head towards my house. It’s not too far from here, maybe a 5 minute walk. Going home I think about how many days I am going to survive in here? Day by day the situation of the city is going worse than before. Many of people including my school friends are dying, so there are likelihoods of me dyeing too. I give out a sigh.

I live in a small house in Gaza with my mother. I take a look at my house it’s not a new styled house but it’s kind of the old houses you see in horror movies. From outside the texture is completely made of grey wood and the roof is the same color and same texture and the main gate is also made of grey wood. This is the first reason I kind of hate this house and Oh My God I cannot believe that I was born in this house and it’s been seven years since I am living in this old, haunted, cramped, shack.

I open the back gate of house and take a step inside, I feel as though something is wrong in the house. Usually whenever I take a step inside mom is standing on the door to greet me like I have been coming back from Antarctica. I take a look around the house looking for mama from room to room. In her bedroom I find her sitting on the chair looking outside the window. She is skinny and tall, with flawless long brown wavy hair and a really attractive face. I knock on the door thrice.

“Mama. Are you alright?”

She look at me and give out a sigh.

“Lucy! You’re home I was concerned about you? How many times I have got to tell you not to go out without me. You are only ten right now”.

“Mama I am fine. You don’t have to worry about me. Why are you looking so upset?”

“Do you even remember what the date today is?”

I am totally unaware about dates because it’s like 2 weeks I am not going to school.

“Uh... I don’t know”.

“It’s May 27! Lucy. Your father’s BIRTHDAY!”

Dad died as a soldier in Palestine war when I was 5. I still remember that day when dad was too late from his work. Mom and I were sitting in the TV lounge waiting for him until 12:00. The light were gone so we couldn’t watch news on TV. That was the first time dad was so late or else he was always at home by 8. Nearly at 2:00 when I was feeling dead tired and sleepy, there was a knock on our door. Mama ran for the door me after her. On the door there were some people from army, maybe 4-5 of them. I couldn’t understand what was happening but when I saw moms face tear streaming down her fully red cheeks, I got to know what happened. The people from army tried to calm down my mother and went back. She closed the door behind her and hugged me tightly. My heart was racing and I buried my face into her, trying hard not to cry out loud. And I don’t know what happened afterwards, it was the worst day of my life. The day when dad died.

“What’s for dinner tonight?” I say trying to change the topic.

“Spaghetti with your favorite sauce.”

We always eat dinner together in the living room, while watching news on a small television, which is in the corner of the lounge.

Today’s headlines is showing the places which have been destroyed by attacks and it includes the place where I was sitting today. It also shows many other places I know and some of them are the public entertainment places where I went with my parents before the situation got worse.

The main headline of today is: "Eight Palestinians were killed by the Israeli security forces, and one person killed by Israeli civilians. In the same time one Israeli civilian and two members of the Israeli armed forces were killed by Palestinians".

This is not an unusual type of news for me. Mostly every day we are getting this type of news from around the country. I have been seeing this type of news since I was born. I think about what kind of news are playing in other countries, obviously they are a lot better. It really feels sick because now I cannot just go out and play with my friends and have a walk around my favorite park and this stupid war has broken my contact with many of exciting activities by which I can pass my free time with, now all that’s left for me to do is wake up, do breakfast, go to school, study, come back from school, eat lunch, listen to some music, read book, go out to my favorite place(where I am not allowed to go now because its destroyed by outbreaks), come back home, eat dinner and go to sleep. It’s always the same every day and I hate it.

After dinner mama head towards kitchen for washing dishes and I go to my room to sleep. I have a small cramped room with a single poster bed decorated with some of my favorite stuff toys on a white bed sheet and quilt over it at the corner of the room by the window with a view of a destructed part of community which was really beautiful some days before. It had a large park in the corner and all of the houses were beautifully decorated.

Although this is the place for army people, my father was in army so we got a house in here. On the other side of the room is a brown wooden study table and an attached brown L shaped bookshelf which is half filled with books. Books including all the collection of Enid Blyton and all the collection of Charles Dickens. On the wall above the study desk there are a lot of posters of some people I don’t even know, I just want my room to look fill up.

I change clothes into my pink sleeping dress with blue teddy bears all over it, which mom bought for me two months ago. I pull myself down on bed and sleep immediately.

I wake up at night because of a loud bursting sound out of the window. I look out of the window and see fire on a house which is next to my friend Julia’s house. “Oh no terrorists”, the words come automatically out of my mouth. I quickly slip out of the bed when suddenly my bedroom door opens up and mama emerge into the room with terror on her face, “Come on Lucy we need to go into the basement”.

I run towards the basement after my mother. In the basement it’s really hot and suffocating. The house basement is covered with dull black wallpaper and is so deep and dirty which doesn’t sounds good for anyone. It’s like no one has visited basement since the last attack, we only use basements to hide ourselves. Outside the basement window I can hear fire extinguisher car and a lot of people noises. After waiting for about half an hour we walk out of the basement hoping that everything will be set down and normal and it is. The fire is over. Everyone is gone. The house looks totally destroyed and burned.

On the way back to my room I hear the doorbell ring and I run for the door. I open the door and find our street security guard on the door, “Can I talk to Miss Cassandra”.

“Mom there is someone calling you on the door” I call out to mama not taking my eyes off the security guard.

After a few seconds mama emerges from behind.

“Good morning Miss Cassandra” says the security guard.

They shake hands.

“Mam due to some rough circumstances, you have got to leave this house as soon as possible” he hand over some papers to mom, “it is a guide to a safe place where you will get a place to live and don’t forget to take the papers of this house with you”.

“But it’s not possible to move so early what am I going to do with all my stuff” says mom.

“Mam you have got to leave everything here, in the new place you will be provided with everything.”

“Okay”, my mother says to the security guard and closes the door behind her.

Oh my God a new house that would be so uncool. And we have got to leave our stuff here. I head towards my bedroom, I am so tired so I get in my room, close the door, lay on the bed, and try to sleep but I don’t know why but sleeping right now is being a lot difficult for me. The only thing occurring to me right now is that for how many more days I am going to live in this world. My friend Julia has gone to London to her grandmother with her parents. She is so lucky that she is living a safe life now, but me over here is just so worried about my life, what am I going to do? After 5 minutes I find myself sleeping.

The first thing I notice the next morning is bright sunlight on my face passing through the pink curtains. It take some time for my eyes to become accustom to the daylight. OH NO its Monday, school today. I get up wash my face, brush my teeth, and get downstairs for breakfast. “Mama! It’s Monday I have got to go to school”, I call out to mama.

“I know honey! Breakfast is ready I am making pancakes for you. Your breakfast is nearly ready”, I hear the voice from kitchen. In kitchen I see mama working on stove with pancakes. Our kitchen is painted off white with light blue marble on the walls and the floor is wooden, kitchen isn’t really big but it isn’t so small. The smell of the pancakes make my stomach growl.

I pretend to help mom doing some work but I don’t do anything except for moving here and there. When the breakfast is ready we eat it silently on a small brown dining table with four chairs inside the kitchen. After breakfast mom helped me get changed into a ping t-shirt with a unicorn on it and she leaves my hair open with a pink hairband on them. I wear my blue frozen bag on my shoulders and mama drive me to school. A 10 minutes’ drive.

Day by day school is being empty some of the students are taking school off because of security problems, some of them are probably dead RIP and some have left the country. My class is in the far end of the school so I have to walk to my class holding my school bag and finally when I reach the class my legs are burning like hell. I find Brenda sitting on a desk in the far end of the class and I go and sit beside her. Before our lessons we spend our time talking about the country situations and our feeling about living here.

First period is of creative writing, my favorite subject but we don’t do anything because the teacher is absent. Then it is mathematics, who loves mathematics? No one I guess including me, so at the end of the lesson my eyes are itching because of the boring lesson. And the rest of the lessons before break pass too quickly today, and in sixth period I have my break. Firstly I had a large group of friends probably of 12-13 girls but now we are only 3. Anna, Brenda and me. We spend our time playing tag in break. I buy a pizza from an empty canteen, which was filled with students some days before.

The seventh lesson is of Science and I spend my time chatting with Brenda on a piece of paper. How was the day? She writes. Boring I write back. After a long chat on paper we start to draw faces of science professor, whose voice sounds like a hungry elephant. And we break into an uncontrollable laugh with professor staring at us with his over sized black eyes. In our eighth lesson Miss. Anna hands over each of us an envelope for our parents.

At the end of the day mom pick me up from school in her white Honda Civic and drive back to house

“How was your school today? “, She asks on the way to house.

“Fine”.

I hand the letter to mama.

“Is it from school? “, She asks.

“Yeah” I say.

“I have got a really excited news for you, I will tell you as we reach home” She says.

I don’t know why but mama is looking like she can burst any moment now with happiness. She never smiled this much from the day dad died.

From a grocery store mama buy some things for making enchiladas and continues to home.

She pulls the car in the garage and I run towards my bedroom throw my bag on the bed and go to kitchen to help mama make enchiladas and serve everything in the T.V launch with an animated movie named Big Hero 6 playing on HBO. While eating, mama opens up the envelope and starts to read the letter from school.

“What is it about? “, I ask her after a few minutes of her reading.

“Your school is evacuating you to a safer place, Honey”.

“Where are they going? “.

“It’s stated that anywhere from Canada, New York, and London”.

I have never been on an airplane and I think these places are too far to go by cars or trains or buses or ships and why are they taking us too far. There are many places near Palestine which are safe. But I have got my grandmother in New York, I can stay with her and I have got Aunt Marie in Canada, which is also fine. Suddenly I remember that mom have a surprise for me to tell me something.

“Mama?” I said.

“What is it?” She says her mouth full of enchilada.

“What did you wanted to tell me when we were coming back from school?”

She turn her face towards me.

“Yeah I really forgot about it, I have booked 2 tickets for New York to get away from this place and go live with Grannie and your cousins, you are going to have a lot of fun there. Right? ”, She says.

I think about it that which side is better for me, to go somewhere with friends or mama. With friends it would be fun and enjoyment and I can even meet mom when I’ll be there because she is also going to New York.

“But I want to go with my friends”.

“Okay we are going to decide it later honey, right now just go to your room and pack your stuff, we are leaving tonight for our new house”.

“What! Tonight?” I exclaim.

She looks at me with her GO-UPSTAIRS-NOW look. So I run to my room and close the door behind with a bang. I look around my room and I can see a lot of important stuff to take with me. But what about my L shaped bookshelf and what about my bed. Aw. I go and hug the furniture saying I am going to miss you all a lot and hugging everything which I am not able to take with me, when I am done with hugging I get serious.

Okay enough of this dramatic scene it’s already getting late I need to hurry up before mom comes up to my room and kill me for not packing. I pick a large sized box from downstairs and take it to my room. When I look around my room again I feel too bad for leaving. I pick all of my stuff toys and arrange them in the box so everything will just fit in. I pick all of my books, posters, clothes and frames from the room and arrange them all into the box. I place a lot of tape around the box so no one can open it, and with a permanent marker write Lucy on the top of the box. I look everywhere and find nothing else to pack. My room never look so empty.

I throw myself on the bed and look outside the window. It is 6:30 and I can see the beautiful sunset in the sky. This time it look different. This is the most different and most beautiful sunset I have ever seen in my entire life. There are lot of different shades of colors. Orange, yellow, pink, light purple, blue and many of the others. And sun is a perfect orange circle. Maybe I am feeling something different about the sunset today, maybe it is the same every day or maybe today it is different, maybe it is rare, I cannot tell.

I wake up by my mother’s soft voice saying me to wake up. I open my eyes and get up from the bed. I look around and the window catch my eyes, it is dark now and the time is 7. I notice that the box has been removed from the room. I go downstairs and look around the house it almost look empty. Mom comes out of the kitchen and asks me to sit in the car, and I do. After waiting a while mom comes out of the kitchen and starts the car’s engine. And for the first time I feel ready for a change.