City of Emerald

We remember a city of lapis and emerald, whose trees hang heavy with pomegranate and orange. Her streets are filled with bustling cars and shops of fine fabrics and hand-stitched carpets. Smoked goat and cumin mingle in the air as old ladies talk loudly through a thick curtain in a chai shop. The mountains peek above the tops of pale pink buildings as the sun folds into a field of poppies.  Her night sky is robed in diamonds so close you could pluck them from their very posts. The voices from the blue mosque beckon for morning as light breaks the silken dusk. This is how we remember her.

But as the thick, dark smoke creeps steadily through our houses, all begins to fade. The hot, dry blood on the pavement fills our noses with the stench of death, soiling the air like car exhaust. The fever of bloodlust haunts our borders. Even the birds hide in their nests with broken chirps. A mother hears screams at night, nagging at her like the whistling kettle on the stove.

Through our windows, we watch. A woman falls to the dirt, clawing to get to her son’s body. Fifteen bullet holes line his chest. She throws herself on him, feeling his last drop of sweat roll down his face. She brought him into this world; her blood was his life. And now she cradles him in her arms; he is that little boy again with round eyes and a mess of hair, her pride and joy. A fresh, soft babe with no scrapes or scars. She wipes the blood from his face, kissing him, breathing into him every ounce of breath she has left, wailing to God to take her life.

 The unforgiving sun dries his blood where others have lain before. In the early morning light, you might see where someone crushed a fistful of fresh cherries, carelessly dripped from his hand. They paint our streets and walls with bitterness.

On the days after, we beg for rain to fall against our parched skin. The dark hours of the night bring respite from the taunts of the sun – as if it would bring us an ounce of joy. No, it’s the rain that soothes our open sores, but rain will not come. Eyelids sink lower as we try to recover what’s lost. The lines in our parents’ faces turn to rivers and eventually to little caverns. All is hidden away.

Hot days burn on with a vengeance while a little girl with bright green eyes makes her way down a muddy street. A man in black standing in the road reaches under his cloak; his eyes are shut. She crosses the road and stops in front of him, eyes fixed on a tiny flower growing in a crack in the street. He senses her there in front of him and his eyes flutter open. She plucks the bright, red poppy from the crack and stares up at him, unflinching, her eyes searing into his as he blinks. He turns and runs away.  She pulls a handful of dirt from a pocket inside her cloak and pours it around the flower, patting it down gently.

Big drops splash against her cheeks.