The stories of people in Gaza have surpassed the boundaries of the imaginary reality found in Márquez’s novels. It reached the limits of a grotesque realism that history has never documented even in its filthiest chapters.
The fire belts are intensifying now
The bombing seems to be everywhere
The noise is horrifying
Houses and tents are shaking
Hearts are trembling
Children’s bodies are shivering
The displacement of people at midnight is heart and back breaking
We cry,
As we are helpless
Displacement is war
The tent is war
Hunger is war
Oppression is war
And poverty is war
People get rid of their waste in the streets
Some urinate on themselves out of disgust
Waiting for the morning to throw their filth into the sea
Imagine how people bathe in the open air
You like to imagine more…
Imagine that…
Food with the flavor of firewood
Cooking that has nothing to do with real cooking
Children losing their sense of taste
They have forgotten the taste of meat and chicken
Even the taste of bread with thyme
You want more scenes?!
Imagine this…
Tents are sinking in the sewers
And sewers are turning into rivers in the streets
The streets are no longer streets
And we are no longer ourselves
They have turned us into strange creatures
We feel like we need to get to know ourselves all over again
Every night I ask myself if all this suffering is worth anything!
Does it justify what is happening to us right now or what happened in the past?!
We do not know when this massacre is going to end. This farce, this absurdity!
All I hope for is that our brains stay in our heads
That we have a chance to see the last episode before we vanish.
Akram Al-Sorani
20/05/2025
