It’s quite a strange experience to see a dead person. It’s even stranger to see a dead person you know. I remember being a little kid, so afraid of death...not for myself, but really the death of someone I loved...and thinking, dreaming that when it came, I would scream and tear at the ground and go wildly ballistic. But now that I’ve looked straight at death—looked him straight in the eye—I feel something quite different.
We were playing. Mia and I. We were playing tag. I knew we weren’t supposed to be playing tag. Baba warned us not to go outside. He said the bad guys would come after us and shoot us down, or they would rain bombs down on our heads. But we had been cooped up in the house for nearly five days and Mama and Aunt Ziza told us to go play. So we played tag.
We tried to stay in the courtyard. Or at least I did. I was it. “Here I come, Mia!” I yelled. “I’ll find you!” I can hear my voice bounce off the walls of the courtyard. I hear laughter. I see long, flying black hair followed by the edges of a blue dress outside the courtyard. She’s faster than I can keep up with. “Mia! You’re cheating! Mama told us not to go outside the courtyard!”
“You’re just too slow, Noor!” she squeals and runs off. Annoyed, I run to the edge of the courtyard and peer out. She’s hidden behind the house. I just know it.
What I remember next is blurry. I go to step out, but am lifted in the air. I land on my back inside the courtyard. Baba rushes out and scoops me up. He’s screaming something. It’s hard to hear. My ear is ringing. I’ve got bruises and scrapes all over me, but I’m okay, and Baba seems to be relieved about that. Mama and Aunt Ziza run out and see that I’m alright, but still look worried. I look back at Baba and try to hear him through the ringing. Where is Mia? Is that what he’s saying?
“Where’s Mia?” I scream passed the deafening ringing.
He nods.
“She ran outside the courtyard!” Baba’s face goes pale. He tells me to show him which way Mia went. Baba places me on the ground and I start to run in front of him. Mama catches onto Baba and seems to plead with him. She’s shaking her head and pointing out there, then pointing inside. He yells something back and pushes her off and pushes me out the courtyard.
In pain, I run in the direction Mia went. I can’t really hear, but I still scream “Mia! Mia!” at the top of my lungs. Baba screams too. I run around the house into the alley behind us and see that a couple of dilapidated houses have fallen over. As I run past them, I see it...in the alley. Long flowing black hair covered over by dust and chunks of cement and rocks. A once blue dress crusted over by dust and chunks of cement and rocks. A small, creamy brown hand lifelessly hanging over. I slow down and slowly walk over with something like a brick in my throat.
“Mia?” As I walk around the hair, the hand, and the dress, I see a pool of blood by her face. Blood was flowing, like a sticky river, out of her nose, mouth, and ears. Her eyes were glazed over and unseeing. Baba, who was trailing behind me, runs up and screams what I’m thinking, “Mia!”
I numbly watch as he drags the body out of the rubble and cradles her in his arms. I’d never seen Baba weep before that day. I only saw him weep once more. I watch him carry her back, each tear mixing with the blood which covers his shirt. He yells something at me. I follow, feeling at the moment like somebody was carrying me too. When we get to the courtyard, both Mama and Aunt Ziza do what I had imagined I’d do if someone close to me died. Aunt Ziza picks Mia up and rocked over her, her mouth open and eyes shut like she was in sudden pain. Mama throws up dust and screams and holds Aunt Ziza.
I just stand there. That person over there is not Mia. Mia was just playing tag with me five minutes ago. She’s still hiding. That’s just a girl that looks like Mia. My cousin. My sister. My friend.
To this day, I cannot grasp that Mia is gone. Even though I watched her body get wrapped in a sheet and get hastily thrown into a pit with all the other victims from that explosion, I still think she’s alive out there in the streets, most likely hiding behind my house playing tag. I can still hear her at times calling me a slowpoke. And sometimes I even see long dark flying hair, and the edge of a blue dress running around the corner. This was my first encounter with Death. And this was my first introduction to the real world.
-January 14, 2009
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