Son or pillow
Jannat Adwan
(Short story)
In Nakba time (catastrophe) when The Zionists began attacking a number of houses in many villages by throwing bombs and missiles at them, the air became gray and filled with dust and many houses were burned. They started moving from village to village, killing, looting, burning, and destroying.
However, lots of people were shocked by what was happening and didn’t believe it.
Hundreds of people forced to leave their house and go to “Nowhere”, a lot of people lost their house, money, jobs, and even their children. They did not believe that this tragedy would continue for many years.
One of these people is mother Sara who lived a tragic life. This woman lived in a house where death entered, as her husband died while defending his homeland, but he left his wife and his newborn son at home and gone.
The Zionists came to this village where Sara lives and began to destroy when she heard the sound of explosions was close to her house, she was trembling with fear, to protect her son, she ran to her baby’s room she didn’t take anything except him and carried him.
In fact, she was supposed to hold her baby, but instead of that and unfortunately, she holds a pillow and left the baby between bombing and destruction and she sped to escape.
When she reached a safe place, she wanted to take a look at her baby, she actually did not find him she just carried a pillow. Here she passed out among a group of people who helped her wake up, when she woke up, she did not utter a word and only looked at the pillow, which she began to see as her son feeding him, nursing him, and cleaning him, and when someone approached him, she got angry and turned them away from him, in short, she got mad.
continue Son or pillow
She was lonely and maybe sleeping with a starving stomach and a frozen body, no one care about her, no one look for her, it’s even there were some children hurt and laughing at her or throw stones at her. Her clothes were .torn, her hair messy, and her feet dusty
Despite this tragedy, commission and kindness for others still exist among these people.
One of them called Ali who used to walk between tents to help the old people and brings food for children who have lost their fathers, he felt grateful to still be among his uncles and grandmother, but unfortunately, he has lost his mother during displacement. One day, as Ali’s habit of helping, he for the first time ran into Sarah, she was holding the pillow and sitting in the cold, she was shivering with cold.
Here Ali remembered his mother and began to think about what might have happened to her, he hurries up, hold her hand and took her to the tent, she was very cold and scared, then he went to his grandma and brought her a blanket and a loaf of bread, Ali sat and started to stare at her, she felt comfortable and reassured as if he was her son, he tried to convince her that the things she was carrying weren’t her baby, but she remained silent. But he continued and said: “I will be your son and I’ll protect you from anyone”.
