For your Eyes Only

By: Nisreen Idrisr
My past life loomed before me as I walked the tortuous road to my village, which I abandoned when I was a boy. I overtook the arrivals accompanied by a nostalgia that stretched before my eyes towards the pure horizon. I collected with each glance a bouquet of love and raised with each whisper a plant of affection.
Here I am; my return was not expected to be at this time. I came back without luggage, leaning on a cane that fraternized with a sustained injury that will never heel with time. I walked down the road while seeing only the reflection of my shadow on the cracked asphalt. The sounds of the glorification of God with chants echoed deeply in my ears like the sound of beating drums from a distance. I am nothing but a passenger who carries the torn paper of his passing days, scouring the past through lines that have emptied from everything!
I found myself leaping into another time, the days of which I had hid between the lashes of my imagination in order to spin them with my memories while I hide in its corners from the days that pass lifeless—moments of inner combustion. Ever since I left the front and my weapon the world has become lifeless for me!
I reached our destroyed house. The houses are so beautiful when we hide inside them our dreams, carving their walls with our blues, growing in their pots plants of happiness and flowers of hope. All I could do was staring at the growing grass and wild roses between its ruins. Each time I looked around a longing for everything grew in my heart. I came near a stone beneath the solid tree that was planted in the garden. I reached out to lift it from its place and pulled from beneath it a rosary beads and a talisman with a carving that read: "God, protect me with your protective shield behind which you protect whomever you chose." The mere touching of these items was sufficient to inflate my heart with winds of sadness, causing my eyes to cry tears of sorrow. It is so hard to return without the loved ones. The trails where thorns of loneliness grew are so depressing. They extend like a silent hedge that encircles the soul. I arrived to this place before my cousin "Ammar," but I realize that I will not win the term which we stipulated together four years ago, when a last mission inflicted me with an injury that hinders me from struggling for the way of God.
Four years ago, "Ammar" and I were assigned with a mission to observe one of the common outposts that gathered the Israeli enemy with the mean Lahdist collaborators in our village. Our mission lasted for ten days. When we started pulling out, the Israeli warplanes began flying at a low altitude. Therefore, we sought refuge at a place that was close to our semi-destroyed house. At dusk, "Ammar" insisted on going home before the completion of our withdrawal. When the warplanes minimized their hovers, we approached the house with extreme caution. On arrival, he took off his ring and placed it with a rosary beads beneath a stone and said to me:
- Next time, either of us comes here before the other and takes them will be the first arrival towards martyrdom."
I was surprised by his behavior, especially because we were at the wrong time and wrong place. So I replied:
- If we remain here, we will never leave this place."
I asked him to speed up our withdrawal before the jets repeat their low hovering. He looked at me and said:
- I do not know why I feel that this is the last time for me seeing our home. Let me save something from our beautiful past life. I want to leave something inside our home that will provide it with warmth before our memories die inside it. Do you see how our childhood has been encircled by wires of absence and distraction? Oh, I repeatedly asked Allah (the Exalted) to help me return once more to our home. It is nice to be held by our house at the time of our death… embracing the remains of our bodies… Don't you think so?
I answered him with some irony:
- I feel that this is going to be our last moments together…"
He continued unrestrainedly with his body language, which made me always happy for him:
- Memories are like perfume that emanates from the roses of the past. This happens when the breeze of nostalgia strikes our deserted spirits."
We continued our way through the hard trails during a night from which we could only see nothing but blackness. From time to time, parachute flares had lit some of the woods that sank into darkness. The group that was waiting for us was not very far. Our mission almost reached its end quietly and successfully. However, the unexpected happened. Fired by one of the warplanes, a rocket struck near us, injuring "Ammar" and me. I did not know what happened until I woke up inside the hospital after being in a coma that lasted almost two weeks. The first one I saw was "Ammar." He was sitting next to me, holding my hand and reciting some verses of the Glorious Quran. However, he had a bandage that covered his eyes, which lost sight forever.
After days of sighs and sorrows, a car stopped in front of our house. "Ammar" dismounted with a comrade. He started approaching slowly to suddenly stop, as if he felt my presence. He laughed and said:
- You outran me? When did you arrive?
- Since this morning
He came and sat near me, held my hand and said:
- None of us will outrun the other towards martyrdom.
- Time is the only thing that exceeded us.
He held a fistful of soil, smelled and cried:
- Say to these planes not to blame me. Say to these mountains, this earth, these trees and rocks, to forgive me. I did not abandon them due to a shouldered burden nor has my love for them vanished. It continues to live inside me. Say to this land that it is my heart with which I can see. Tell her that my eyes are not extinguished. My other senses continue to feel their destination with their track as my compass. My heart will guide me the way. Ask them, why they did not embrace my soul when I fell to the ground swimming in my blood? I wonder if I do not deserve to die among the grains of its dust. Are they rejecting me because of my wrongdoing? Did they take my sight because it travelled their vastness to scan its holy limits with loyalty? Ask them to forgive me for losing my voice and whispers. I never abandoned them. I have no elsewhere to go. Those fronts are haunting me. The image of victory is so beautiful. Who owns this colorful space? Who owns this sky? Who owns this passion?
I embraced him and said:
- For your eyes only O "Ammar…" For your eyes only is this space…"