I saw a sparrow that looked like a crow.
I asked, are you a sparrow, looking like a crow?
Yes. I’m a sparrow. I flew out of Gaza.
What happened to your wings and plumes?
I was caught in the rain of phosphorous bombs.
Oh, I see.
But I cannot see you clearly. My eyesight is also almost gone. I just kept
flying away from the bombs. What place is this?
This is Pakistan. This is where we are protesting against the enemies of
sparrows.
How do you protest?
We boycott Colgate. Now we use our local toothpaste and miswak.
Especially the miswak we get from zaitoon.
Don’t remind me of zaitoon. I used to live in a zaitoon tree.
I’m sorry about that.
Sorrow is hollow. Sounds so small and hollow.
I know but… are you the only survivor to reach here.
Perhaps. When the bombardment started at night, we fell out of our nests.
In the morning, a boy crawled towards me. I was barely alive. I saw a heap
of other sparrows under the tree. The explosions stopped their hearts. There
was no blood. The boy took me into his hand.
Who was the boy?
He was the son of a single mom whose husband had died in an earlier
bombardment. We lived in the zaitoon in their courtyard.
Where is he now?
Don’t know for sure. He couldn’t run. He had only one leg and one arm.
Only one leg and one arm?
Yes. He lost them in an earlier bombardment. He had only one crutch,
poor boy. He didn’t need the other one as he had only one arm. Like a wall-
clock ticking with a single arm. I remember the day when it happened to
him. When the bomb hit their home, he was playing football with a friend.
He does not play football anymore. After that bombing, he also lost his
hearing. He cannot even hear bombs exploding near him. Maybe it’s good
for him.
God knows what’s good.
Yes. God. I fail to understand Him. What is His plan to run this show of
the world?
Maybe He is more occupied in some other part of the universe, in some
other galaxy. He seems to have abandoned ours.
Seems so. Even babies are slaughtered in their cradles.
Where are the other sparrows of your family?
I lost them in Baghdad.
Baghdad? But you are from Gaza.
I was born in Baghdad. Sometime back, there was bombing there too. We
were sleeping in our nests. Suddenly, the sky was lit with many fireflies.
When they hit buildings on the ground, the fireflies turned into fire.
Immense fire and explosions. My mom’s heart stopped due to those
explosions. I don’t know how I survived.
You are a survivor. You have survived the second time. But you look like a
crow.
Yes. The sparrows are dead. Only crows are left. Do you have zaitoon trees
here?
Yes, we have. But they are not as common here as in your country.
I have no country. I am a bird of no land. I want to go to a place where
babies’ hearts are not stopped with precision bombs. Where sparrows are
not burnt with phosphorous bombs.