عقبہ

1) I am going to school, not running a bridge on a plateau assault where the parshendi arrived first.

2) I am going on a date, not getting betrayed by my childhood friend in the middle of a battle against TWO parshendi armies.

3) I am going to a job interview, not staying out during a highstorm completely unaided (yes, that includes Syl)

4) I have received an email, not a shardblade while being a darkeyes in Amarams army

5) I am stressed and anxious, but I am NOT Kaladin Stormblessed that one night at the chasm.

dandelion sun~

I’m not gonna cry. I-I’m

not. I’m not! Gonna–

References to graphic violence ahead. Firebombing wrecked Tokyo. The firebombing attacks,iirc, actually killed more civilians than the atomic bombs did. There are anecdotes from survivors about crowds of people running and trampling each other to try to escape the napalm. About people running to local swimming pools just to try to douse out the fires or escape only to find that the water of the pools completely dried up because of the heat. Of people bursting into flames in the middle of running. Of people's organs/bodies, quite frankly, melting into liquid. An account of a survivor's mother, for years after the war, pouring cups of water over her deceased daughter's grave and saying "little one, you must have been so hot."

I read this Hadith and thought that what immense grief my Imam Hussain (as) had felt when he saw the pierced throat of Ali Asghar (as) and what big a catastrophe presenting this pierced throat to the mother of the infant had been that he recited inna Lillah 07 times while pacing to and fro in front of the tent of Bibi Umm e Rabab (sa).

Salutation of the day and night on the heart of Imam Hussain (as). ❤️

then they started fighting Covid precautions.

i remember adults telling me, as a kid, that the ozone was disappearing and the earth was dying and we needed to recycle and save the planet.

now my parents think climate change is a myth.

i remember adults telling me, as a kid, that racism was a plague, that we had to love and accept everyone, that we should never judge before walking a mile in their shoes.

then they told me that protesting for my Black siblings was wrong.

i remember adults telling me, as a kid, that we needed to give to the poor. working at soup kitchens. making quilts. collecting food and money and supplies. building houses. because it was the christian and just plain right thing to do.

now they look at me, on food stamps with their grandchildren, and lament the "welfare state".

i remember adults telling me, as a kid, that it was easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than a rich man to enter the Kingdom of Heaven and that any rich man, especially an immoral one, should never run our country.

you can guess who they voted for.

i remember adults telling me, as a kid, so very much.