Children of War

My name is Dawud and I am 9 years old. I live in the city of Aleppo, located in a country called Syria. My father used to work in a drugstore before it was exploded by the devil. My mother was a housewife. She used to take best care of us before she lost her hands. Now can't hold my hand. I have a 11 year old big brother named Adil and a sister called Aisyah. She was 5 when we found her under the rubble. She doesn't live with us anymore. My father told me she stays with grandmother and father, in heaven. I did not understand why she had to go, because she was too young. I used to think only old people went to heaven.

As I was a big brother of her, I liked to make fun of her and was considered mean actually. I like to yank her hair, and stole her doll just to tease her till she cried but well I only wanted to have fun. I never meant to really make her sad and annoyed. Now neither I can beg her sorry nor I would be able to get the chance to tell her I love her. Mama said that people in heaven can still see us, so at night before I go to sleep, I tell her I am sorry and I wish her to take me to heaven with her.

I miss my school that I can't go to anymore because it's no longer safe for children and anyways most of the classrooms were destroyed, and... there are bad people who control the city and they have guns, they have ugly long beards untidy and they never smile and whenever I see their faces I am super scared of them, they are all scary. Mama told me that they kidnapped my cousin Fawziyah that we don't know where she is now. Even though I don't go to school anymore I still can study with my brother at home but it doesn't feel the same. I also miss my friends that I no longer hear from them at all.

I used to have a friend called Hayder, my best friend, but he moved away from Ghouta. My dad told me they attempted to go to a foreign country, somewhere far from the flaming bombs and falling explosion from the sky, but then my cousin Ibrahim, who was friends with his big brother Ali told me that he drowned in the sea while they were trying to cross by swimming. I don’t know its name I forgot. I cried when I knew that he went to heaven,but I was sure he could play with Aisyah.

I can’t play soccer anymore. First of all the fields are now full of ashes, and it is not safe to go there, there are “thugs” that my dad taught me this new word. Those thugs usually stop you, and take your money or whatever you have. We really have no money, we hardly eat anymore, my auntie Fikriyyah who lives in Saudi Arabia used to send us money with someone, but now it is too hard because the city is surrounded by armed soldiers. Another word I learned from my dad, it means that the army is surrounding us so the bad people can stay inside. But we are not bad people, I don’t know why we cannot get out. My dad said because we have nowhere to go.

Now I am hungry, my mama is sick, can't cook. My house used to be nice, we used to have a big screen Lcd TV, and I used to watch cartoon but now we have no electricity at all, and the house is destroyed because the planes came and dropped bombs, and that is when Aisyah went to heaven and my mama lost her hands. We put plastic on the roof but now it is winter and it is really cold. I still have one book, some of the pages are burned. I don't really like reading but I love watching pictures and imagining. Adil tells me stories...stories about safe places, with children who can go to school, and learn new things and also memorizing the Holy Quran. He told me they can play in gardens and playgrounds. There are candy stores and amusement parks. I have never seen these things, but Adil can draw and he has a notebook and a pen, and everyday he draws me a new picture.

Today he drew a picture of our family, my mama looks like she has complete hands, my papa, me and Adil and Aisyah.. Hayder was also in the picture. I looked at it one last time and smiled before I folded the paper carefully and put it between the burned pages of my one only book.

[Not a actual story. It's only a piece of my writings that I dedicate it for the children in Syria and other countries that going under war]