Travel: A Memoir
Ashna Nizar, Mirage of Curiosity
March 30th 2015, Allepo, Siriya.
Allepo is nothing but rubbles, and among the chaos, with my entire being covered in thick layer of dust, I wandered in search of someone who’d call me ‘Mahmood’ with love. All in vain. My home is where my parents and my siblings rest, under the pile of dust, steel and bricks. I still remember the last time I bid my mother Salam. Her face was fresh and bright, minutes before my walls came tumbling down over them.
Without a single soul to hear my cry for help, I stood by them for two days. The cold nights chilled my bones and eventually my heart. I can no long feel the pain. I travelled all around the city to find solace, but Allepo is no longer home to me. The starry nights when I sleep in the refugee camp with hundred other men is the only good left. I must leave.
May 28th, 2015, the middle of nowhere.
The sea is calm, but my mind is stormy. I’m not afraid of being drowned. I’m afraid to go back to the war torn land I used to call home. I have no will to live. I don’t fear death, but dread having to live life without a purpose. So I decided to travel. To some place where I can dream again.
It’s been five days since I’ve been on this vessel with 274 men, women and children. We get to go on deck of this container ship for fifteen minutes every two days. Food ran out and so will water in a matter of days. Yet my hunger feels better than the crippling sense of loneliness back in Allepo. We never sleep for more than two hours at a stretch, yet it was more peaceful than Allepo.
Where will the vessel anchor ? No one knows. We just keep travelling until we make it to a distant shore alive or rest beneath the violent waves along with our dreams and desires. All we do aboard is pray.
June 14th 2015, Antalaya, Turkey.
275 boarded their hope to freedom. 32 made it to the shore. The journey claimed 64 souls and the bullets fired with great valour by the Turkish coast guard claimed the rest. I swam with all my night, despite the million times my arms and legs gave up, something pulled me to the shore.
January 3rd 2016, Istanbul, Turkey.
Istanbul, the most beautiful city I’ve ever witnessed. The nights were cooler than Allepo but the stars were the same. Instead of a hinder lost souls to watch the starry night I had Sana. She too, is a traveller. She was the something that pulled me towards the shore. We travelled all across the city with whatever we had. Found solace in each other. We had something to call ours, again. Something to lose.
September 24th 2018, Paris, France.
Sana, little Hamadan and I are travelling again. This time not as refugees but as real tourist, to the city of lights. To celebrate our life, the life we no longer had. To celebrate our dreams. To salute the numerous travellers who decided to take up the journey like us.
