Among the things that could be said about home is this: You return exhausted from a long journey. You drop your belongings on a table in a café; a cafe that hasn’t opened for the day. It doesn’t matter whose table it is. Everything here is yours. Even what others claim as theirs at certain times, it is also yours, as what is for them is yours, and what is for you is theirs.
Someone will arrive soon. He speaks your language, your dialect, and he stresses on certain letters exactly like you do. He smiles with the same expressions on his face like you. He greets you in the morning with the same accent and the same tone of your sorrows, your thoughts, and your hopes! Then, he will stop you from leaving the table and offers you a cup of coffee while you are having a quick conversation.
He stares at your face and tries to figure out which family you descend from. If he fails at first, he tries once more until he makes it. He asks you about someone he knows, and if you are related. Then, he tells you a story or two as he prepares the coffee. Meanwhile, you continue to count the lines on his face.
Soon you realize that you, too, know so much about this person. You find yourselves speaking of things no one else on this earth could ever understand except those who were born and live on this piece of land!
Gradually, the conversation calms down and the coffee is ready. You offer to pay for it. He gets angry. You move on, continue your way as if you had been sitting with yourself all alone. There is no difference between both of you, neither in sorrow nor in fate. He speaks your language, your dialect. He stresses certain letters just as you do. He smiles with the same facial expressions.
At a café at the port of Gaza
Mohammad Alokshiya
February 27, 2025
