I try to escape. I search for anything to fill the emptiness, to keep my mind busy and away from the burden of memories. If I do not do that, memories shall swallow me. I download movies and series. I try to convince myself that it is fun, however all that I want is to spare time and stop thinking.
In fact, my brain is no longer what it used to be. Every moment inside is tied to the past. Each scene in front of me bears a shadow of what I witnessed with my own eyes. Every story feels like a reflection of my previous days. Anything that seemed once fictional has become now closer to reality.
On my list was the “Squid Game”, season two. I found myself recalling season one. That was before the war started and turned everything around me into a nightmare.
This time it was not just a series. It was a harsh record of a reality I lived. In the war, we became the players though we didn’t choose to participate in “the game”. War was forced on us out of need and despair, exactly like those participating in the show. There was no way out, no choice except to survive at any cost.
As for those who were wearing masks, there were many of them. Featureless faces with no mercy. They just followed orders without thinking. As in the series, they were not just soldiers or enforcers. They were part of a wider circle that saw in our death something usual, a routine, as if it is another stage in the “game”. A sniper here and a shell there. A massacre in some distant corner while the powerful were seemingly enjoying watching how the players fell, one after the other, as in the series.
In Squid Game, the players fought each other to survive, though they were all victims like us. Trapped in a circle with no way out, trying to find a sip of water, a bite of bread, somewhere to hide, while death chases them from every side. Every time one of us fell, the world didn’t blink. The game didn’t pause. It just kept going on as if our souls were nothing but numbers fading quietly into the background.
However, the difference between us and them is that in the Squid Game the winner got something at the end, while here even the ones who survived walk away with nothing in hand. Just more war and ruins. Piles of rubble and tents on the top of tents.
It seems that the world did not need a show to imagine a death game. All that the people had to do was to open their eyes wide and watch us. We are the game, and Gaza is not a fictional scene.
Gaza was a whole life that was wiped out by nothingness.
Najia Mahmoud
February 18, 2025
