All the neighbourhood kids loved my brother Tareeq. He was calmer than a breeze. He would take his pocket money from my father and give it to me.
Everyone loved him. His friends came and he went with them to school. They ran out like butterflies, flying off the ground like the world was created for them.
The Israeli planes were in the air. The sound of the helicopter was like a monster waiting to pounce on its prey. A car with wanted men was driving along Yarmouk Street and the butterflies were near the car. The butterflies did not know that this car would be the fire that would burn them.
A rocket fell on the car. My brother Tareeq flew five metres off the ground. He flew higher than the car and then came down. He got up like nothing had happened. The ambulance came to take the corpses. People told him to get into the ambulance, but my brother told them that nothing was wrong with him. He continued on his way to school. About 100 metres from the site of the Israeli strike, Tareeq put his hand on his heart and fell to become a martyr.
I was in the street waiting for the school bus and my sister told me to go and see what was happening. I went but I didn’t see Tareeq. I went on to school.
While I was in school, my uncle came and told me that I would be taking three days off from school. I didn’t suspect and we got into the car. My uncle told the driver to turn off the news. That was when I started getting suspicious as my uncle loved the news. When we got home, there was a big crowd of people there. I saw my father sitting on a chair, crying. It was the first time I saw my father cry and he was holding the picture of Tareeq. I asked him, “Dad, was my brother martyred?” He said, “God have mercy on his soul.”
The ambulance brought him from the hospital. We all ran to him…to say goodbye. He had been sleeping like an angel with his hands still bloody. My father refused to let us go with him to the cemetery. But I got into the car and went and said goodbye to him and read the Fathia prayer on his grave…I went there every day for three months to sit at his grave and talk to him.
All night, I stared at his picture in the room with “The hero martyr — Tareeq” written on it.
After my brother’s martyrdom, I had to get used to sleeping in bed alone. We used to sleep on top of the other, legs on top of heads. Sometimes, it felt like all our limbs were jumbled together. But, after that day, I had the bed to myself!
I will never forget my brother.
(Translated from Arabic by Fida Jiryis)
(By arrangement with Ashtar Theatre)
