I am sitting in a cafe overlooking Al-Nasr Street which used to be once very crowded with people, not cars, throughout my journey to my home. I think the one who named this street, “Al-Nasr”, “Victory”, believed that true victory means going back home; not to another place I mean. That is why this route was in my eyes the most beautiful one, as it led me to my nest, my home.
I am sitting here now in the same café. It is a continuation of my life. I work here. I meet my friends here, and I try to figure out the features of the coming days while sitting at one of the tables here.
The cafe used to be small, like a child who is growing slowly and is embraced by an exhausted city. In the middle stands a tree, on which branches visitors hang letters addressed to the place. The cafe grew bigger. It changed. In fact, everything changed. We noticed that when everything around us became larger, including our wounds.
One day, Gaza will stand up in front of the mirror and ask, “Who am I!” Gaza will then realize how “her” face is nothing now but a past memory of an older mirror. “She” does not resemble herself anymore.
The cafe looks bigger now as if it is trying to console the city, however, both are suffering from the same wound.
As for the tree, it still stands there but without leaves. There is no time left for hanging messages on, or maybe the writers gave up and left.
Visitors are no longer as they used to be. They are just “passersbys”. They are aware that they are trapped between two possibilities. Either they survive and live or get targeted by a strike and die. There is not a third option, except a temporary moment during which they can pretend that they have made a choice.
Anyone who comes in pulls a chair, trying to steal a moment of quietness. One melts the time into his cup and then moves on with his “journey”.
Baba Roti was once a small cafe. It suddenly became big. It changed quickly like everything else caused by the war.
War changes everything. It blows up places, people, and even the moments in which one swallows a bite. No peaceful sip of coffee anymore. Everything is just temporary, and survival, too.
I have been sitting here for a long time, designing the final page of my first book. A book which I wished that it hasn’t been born from the womb of the war, however, war does not grant one the right to choose. Everything in it lies between two fates, either sarcasm or absurdity. Also, a broken song.
Sherine, (Egyptian singer) is singing, “Mashae’r” (Feelings). She is interrupted by Ziad, (Ziad Rahbani, a Lebanese singer and composer), “I am living alone without you”.
Up, above our heads, the “F16” roaring at a low altitude. That is not just a loud disturbing noise, but also a soldier entertaining himself by our killing. If he is aware that a song is playing, he’ll blow us up. The body, at that moment, becomes suddenly a nest for a bird. No one scares away a bird when it lands on its head.
A city that has lived in terror for so long does not wish to experience the feeling of fear anymore, even if it comes from a bird resting above.
Ziad, the singer, continues: “enough speaking of your love, the city is making fun of you”.
But as for me, all I want now is to see the city laughing even if that was at a rude joke…
“Five trucks of flour entered Gaza”.
Who can remember now the Baba Roti tree?! The real café that we knew. Not another one that replaces it, so that we can hang our message as we used to do before the war.
It is just a ridiculous joke that the City is laughing at.
Fedaa Zeyad
22/05/2025
