Last night saw the eighth attack in five days.two bombs went off in Lahore in this place called Allama Iqbal Town, in the middle of what is a very busy area.twenty nine more people died, and about forty five others were admitted into a hospital with critical or minor wounds.
It's too much to take. I don't even know what to write anymore. I don't seem very capable of coherent thought in my head anymore. All i can feel is this distant numbness, a part of my consciousness that refuses to accept that this is all happening to ME.my hometown.my country. All that ever goes through my head, is, 'how is someone my age..heck.how is someone ANY age, supposed to be able to deal with this murder.there's no other word to call it. it's murder.it's out and out slaughter,and it's murder in cold blood. How can ANYONE go through this, and not be emotionally and psychologically scarred to some degree?!Because I know I am, and more than I ever let on to anyone. The nightmares. Crying into my prayers. The constant sense of impending doom. It's become so deeply ingrained in who I am now. I scarcely remember what it was like to be carefree; those days seem like a lifetime away. Someone else's lifetime.
I try not to think about it and just move along with life. Love and life may have been lost, but the world keeps on turning. So I smile my way through the pain. I go to school.Or university,i guess.I may be eighteen and in college,but I still feel the same as I did when I was thirteen or fourteen. It'll always be school to me. So. I go to school. I deal with a further sense of chaos when I look into all those made up faces and beaming smiles and know I'll never be one of them. Not them, with their perfectly made up faces and their constant swearing because it's 'oh so cool' and their obsession with boys. I know I'll never be one of them because I know what I want in my life. What's left of it anyway. And I want substance. Meaning. Something they can't give me. Though how I'm supposed to find substance amidst all this death and destruction is beyond me. I'm not even sure if my world will still be the same as it was when I wake up. What if there's a sudden burst of white light and next thing I know, I'm floating over my own lifeless body? Or worse, much worse. What if I wake up and I'm staring down into someone else's lifeless body? Someone I care about? How do I live through that? Because we're all under threat. Some of us more than others. And since my dad's a miliary man, he among many other senior official are threatened personally. So yeah. Big ball of laughs there huh.
What scares the heebie jeebies out of me most is giving into this fear. Though a part of me think's I've already resigned myself to it. I'm pretty scared to death that Allah will find that I'm lacking. That my faith's incomplete. That I should give in to His Will, whatever it may be, and place my Trust in Him. And I DO trust Him. I do. But maybe it's not enough. Maybe I need to give more. I am seriously afraid that He's going to think I'm a weak person for not staying calm and saying to myself 'Trust in God, it's going to be okay.Just TRUST.'
Which is not to say I don't. Because I do. But somedays it's easier to calm down yourself with that thought than others.
It can't be religious fanatics that are doing this. I know this because when you see a war like this firsthand, you know that there's more to it. No MUSLIM, good or bad, is capable of this kind of genocide. No MUSLIM, would file into a mosque for Friday Prayers with a lot of other civilans and military personell in what is a military based Mosque, and then, midway during prayers, start firing blindly into the crowd. No MUSLIM, would listen to a father beg to let his five year old son go, his son that he's brought to a mosque to pray for the first time, and then answer that appeal by shooting the little boy first point blank in front of his father, and then the man.No MUSLIM, would ask all the children present in the mosque to lie on their stomachs on the floor, and then shoot them all in the back to death.No MUSLIM, would storm through the curtains seperating the men and women praying quarters, and kill all the praying women too. No Muslim would do that. Not for all the money, not for all the motivation in the world. Not even a religious fanatic can carry out such a specifically targeted killing. This wasn't just a bombing carried out by a madman. This was cold blooded murder, and hundreds of us, including myself, lost people we knew and cared about that day.
I don't think I can write about this anymore. Thinking about this only makes it all the more worse and I can't afford to be distracted right now. I have three assignments and a presentation to work on for univeristy tomorrow. Normal kids have studies to worry about. Pakistani kids get to have schoolwork as the least of their worries. Lucky us. We're too busy worrying about whether we'll be around to submit the darned stuff at school or work or college the next day.
Remember to pray everyone. We are all people, no matter where we live, or what we believe in, and we're entitled to live our lives in relative peace and security. Pray that my people earn that right someday. Pray that I do. Because nobody has the right to take that from us. Nobody.
Tuesday, December 8, 2009
Thursday, December 3, 2009
Aftermath..
And the next thing I know, it's eight forty five in the morning, and my mom is yelling me to get off my lazy butt and out of bed.
I went online that day after I got back from school, same as I do every other day. There on top of my facebook news feed, was a link for a youtube video that a distant cousin of mine had posted. I clicked open the link, and began viewing it from my Facebook page. The video was about Blackwater. What it's supposed to be. What conspiracy theorists say it really is. How there are Blackwater agents right here in Pakistan. Apparently, there've been quite a few sightings of them in Peshawar and areas in the Frontier. They've been spotted driving in sleek, expensive jeeps, dressed all in black..
I couldn't sleep that night. I was scared I'd have another nightmare. And i was so freaked by my dream and what the video seemed to confirm.
I didn't have a nightmare the night after that. But then the night after that I did have one. In that dream, I was passing by one of the neighborhoods, just driving through, minding my own business, when I hear this collosal noise, and when I lift my head up, there's a big mushroom cloud in the sky beneath which the sky's growing a hazy brown and grey with the growing smoke and dust rising in the air. In my dream, this entire apartment complex, incidentally, the ones right next door to the ones that collapsed during the 7.6 magnitude earthquake that killed over 80 000 people on october 8th 2005. It's a bomb. But not a suicide attack, like most are here. It's an intentionally dropped bomb. It sounds crazy, i know. For one, you don't exactly get a mushroom shaped cloud when a small territory is targeted. But that's what i saw.
When I told my best friend Mer, she said all the violence and bombings in the country, everything tht we're going through, with people dying everyday and bodies littering the streets after attacks, it's no wonder this is beginning to have a psychological impact on us. I guess she's right. No, scratch that. I KNOW she's right.
It's just scary, that's all I know.
I went online that day after I got back from school, same as I do every other day. There on top of my facebook news feed, was a link for a youtube video that a distant cousin of mine had posted. I clicked open the link, and began viewing it from my Facebook page. The video was about Blackwater. What it's supposed to be. What conspiracy theorists say it really is. How there are Blackwater agents right here in Pakistan. Apparently, there've been quite a few sightings of them in Peshawar and areas in the Frontier. They've been spotted driving in sleek, expensive jeeps, dressed all in black..
I couldn't sleep that night. I was scared I'd have another nightmare. And i was so freaked by my dream and what the video seemed to confirm.
I didn't have a nightmare the night after that. But then the night after that I did have one. In that dream, I was passing by one of the neighborhoods, just driving through, minding my own business, when I hear this collosal noise, and when I lift my head up, there's a big mushroom cloud in the sky beneath which the sky's growing a hazy brown and grey with the growing smoke and dust rising in the air. In my dream, this entire apartment complex, incidentally, the ones right next door to the ones that collapsed during the 7.6 magnitude earthquake that killed over 80 000 people on october 8th 2005. It's a bomb. But not a suicide attack, like most are here. It's an intentionally dropped bomb. It sounds crazy, i know. For one, you don't exactly get a mushroom shaped cloud when a small territory is targeted. But that's what i saw.
When I told my best friend Mer, she said all the violence and bombings in the country, everything tht we're going through, with people dying everyday and bodies littering the streets after attacks, it's no wonder this is beginning to have a psychological impact on us. I guess she's right. No, scratch that. I KNOW she's right.
It's just scary, that's all I know.
Nightmare
In my first dream, I'm sitting on this park bench with this man. Somewhere, the corner of my brain concerned with reality tells me he's not real but I don't listen. All i know is, that this man right here, is where the waiting paid off. This is where all that hard learned patience stopped at. Dream me knows that I love this man sitting beside me more than anybody else in the whole world, and that he's the one I've dedicated to spending the rest of my existance with. He's telling me about some things. He's worried. He tells me of his hopes, his fears. He's scared that his father will refuse to acknowledge him if he chooses to forge his own path the way he wants to, instead of following in his fathers footsteps and taking a position in the family business. With him, I feel secure and confident. I have never felt so sure of myself in my whole life. With this guy, I know, there's no need to play pretend. There's no games involved. I can be exactly the person I am and he'll love me all the more for it...
As we're talking,minutes pass by and we're unaware of the the time passing, until right then, there's a loud noise. A noise I can't remember the details of, except that it was loud and ominous sounding.
And then,as we turn in shock,we see people turning the corner, running. Running as if their lives depended on it.
And then, as I whirl my head, I spy four men clad in black.wearing these wierd clothes that look more like something a CIA assasin would wear, and my heart sinks. My subconscious can't put a finger on it, but dream me knows this is bad. Very bad.
Beads of sweat start to form on my forehead as recognition hits me hard, like a ton of bricks wallopped right in my stomach. I know who these people are. I know what they want. I know exactly what they want.
And that's us. Dead.
I tug at his hand, that of the one dream-me loves, and pull him to his feet. He whirls his head in confusion and sees what made me react the way I did. His eyes open wide, and he says just one little word:
Run.
We both break into a sprint, a mad dash with our hands still clasped tightly. No matter what happens, there's no way we're letting go. Not of each other. So we run, and we run. We dash across the pavement and into the woods within the parkland. We run across the overgrown path, moving in zig zags, trying to dodge the bullets that are fired our way every time we come into their line of vision. We run as fast as we can, the fear pumping adrenaline into our veins, and as another bullet is fired not too far from us, I think to myself, mad with fright,in a single selfish thought : 'Please. If it's going to be somebody, let it be me. Don't let him get hurt. If You're going to take one of us here, save HIM. Do not let him be taken away from me right before my eyes'.
We reach the end of the woods and we're back onto the main path. The gate is less than a mad dash away so we head insitinctively towards it. They're still behind us, too far to fire, but close enough to watch us. In a crazy move, we join a throng of people screaming and running into an empty storage building with lots of floors. For the rest of the duration of my dream, we and many others run like crazy up and down stairwells and empty corridors, and after we eventually get chased down the basement by the gunmen, we're trapped. There's one vent through which many others are escaping before the gunmen run down the many flights of stairs and corner us, and I'm willing him to go up and hurry, there's no time, the men are almost at the door. I can hear their voices through the thin walls of the basement, they'll be banging down the door any minute. But he won't. He just bloody well won't. There's too many scrambling for the safety of the vent and there's no time for both of us to claw our way through and make our way up the duct. And he says he won't leave me. He's not going anywhere. Oh God, he won't leave. My heart starts to bang against the walls of my chest as panic and fear begin to cave in. He looks just as scared as I am. He does the only thing that makes sense to him at that moment. He brings me close to him and holds me tight. Holds me close and burries his face in my hair and I can feel his heart pounding just as hard as mine as. He lifts his head and looks into my eyes, peers deep as if somehow my face showed a window to my soul. But something tells me he doesn't need a window. He sees my soul just fine without it. And then, he says just three little words before he hugs me tight again, his face burried in my hair and mine against his chest, breathing in his scent as the doors fling open and are beaten down. Says them in a faint whisper, so low only I can hear. And I can hear them loud and clear.
'I love you'...
As we're talking,minutes pass by and we're unaware of the the time passing, until right then, there's a loud noise. A noise I can't remember the details of, except that it was loud and ominous sounding.
And then,as we turn in shock,we see people turning the corner, running. Running as if their lives depended on it.
And then, as I whirl my head, I spy four men clad in black.wearing these wierd clothes that look more like something a CIA assasin would wear, and my heart sinks. My subconscious can't put a finger on it, but dream me knows this is bad. Very bad.
Beads of sweat start to form on my forehead as recognition hits me hard, like a ton of bricks wallopped right in my stomach. I know who these people are. I know what they want. I know exactly what they want.
And that's us. Dead.
I tug at his hand, that of the one dream-me loves, and pull him to his feet. He whirls his head in confusion and sees what made me react the way I did. His eyes open wide, and he says just one little word:
Run.
We both break into a sprint, a mad dash with our hands still clasped tightly. No matter what happens, there's no way we're letting go. Not of each other. So we run, and we run. We dash across the pavement and into the woods within the parkland. We run across the overgrown path, moving in zig zags, trying to dodge the bullets that are fired our way every time we come into their line of vision. We run as fast as we can, the fear pumping adrenaline into our veins, and as another bullet is fired not too far from us, I think to myself, mad with fright,in a single selfish thought : 'Please. If it's going to be somebody, let it be me. Don't let him get hurt. If You're going to take one of us here, save HIM. Do not let him be taken away from me right before my eyes'.
We reach the end of the woods and we're back onto the main path. The gate is less than a mad dash away so we head insitinctively towards it. They're still behind us, too far to fire, but close enough to watch us. In a crazy move, we join a throng of people screaming and running into an empty storage building with lots of floors. For the rest of the duration of my dream, we and many others run like crazy up and down stairwells and empty corridors, and after we eventually get chased down the basement by the gunmen, we're trapped. There's one vent through which many others are escaping before the gunmen run down the many flights of stairs and corner us, and I'm willing him to go up and hurry, there's no time, the men are almost at the door. I can hear their voices through the thin walls of the basement, they'll be banging down the door any minute. But he won't. He just bloody well won't. There's too many scrambling for the safety of the vent and there's no time for both of us to claw our way through and make our way up the duct. And he says he won't leave me. He's not going anywhere. Oh God, he won't leave. My heart starts to bang against the walls of my chest as panic and fear begin to cave in. He looks just as scared as I am. He does the only thing that makes sense to him at that moment. He brings me close to him and holds me tight. Holds me close and burries his face in my hair and I can feel his heart pounding just as hard as mine as. He lifts his head and looks into my eyes, peers deep as if somehow my face showed a window to my soul. But something tells me he doesn't need a window. He sees my soul just fine without it. And then, he says just three little words before he hugs me tight again, his face burried in my hair and mine against his chest, breathing in his scent as the doors fling open and are beaten down. Says them in a faint whisper, so low only I can hear. And I can hear them loud and clear.
'I love you'...
Hiatus
I don't find myself writing much these days. I don't know why. Writing was something i did everyday. It came naturally to me, as breathing and eating and drinking do to a person. It's not that I don't have anything to say. Far from it..
But I've seemed to lose track of the words to say them in. I muse over the things going through my head, churning over and over in my brain and trying to make sense of the thoughts going through my head and the feelings I'm feeling. It's not easy anymore. There's so many thoughts going through my mind all at once. I worry about school, about my grades, about the fact that I'm still struggling with the people I'm hanging out with. They're not my friends, they're more my friends' friends. I actually kind of hate them. But I'm finally taking a stand and deciding who I want to be happy hanging out with. I've seperated,so to speak,from them now. So clearly,there's a lot I have to deal with and do. But most of all...I pray.
Even as I write this, I'm struggling. I can't seem to figure out how to best phrase this massive web of confusion that's wrapped itself well around my head. I've lost what little grip I had over the words I chose to describe what I was going through. I guess I'll just come right out and say it. All of it.
More than anything, I find that there's fear in my heart. Fear of what's happening. Fear of what I don't know.Fear of what's to come..
Everyday seems to be a struggle. And deep down, in the pit of my stomach, there's dread. Quite a bit of it. I dread what I fear is inevitable. I'm scared that there's a clock ticking by somewhere, counting down the seconds till everything that's been happening in my country blows up in our faces and somebody else decides to take control.
It's consumed every bit of me. It's taken over my consciousness, and my subconsciousness, seeping into my dreams and turning them into my worst nightmares...
But I've seemed to lose track of the words to say them in. I muse over the things going through my head, churning over and over in my brain and trying to make sense of the thoughts going through my head and the feelings I'm feeling. It's not easy anymore. There's so many thoughts going through my mind all at once. I worry about school, about my grades, about the fact that I'm still struggling with the people I'm hanging out with. They're not my friends, they're more my friends' friends. I actually kind of hate them. But I'm finally taking a stand and deciding who I want to be happy hanging out with. I've seperated,so to speak,from them now. So clearly,there's a lot I have to deal with and do. But most of all...I pray.
Even as I write this, I'm struggling. I can't seem to figure out how to best phrase this massive web of confusion that's wrapped itself well around my head. I've lost what little grip I had over the words I chose to describe what I was going through. I guess I'll just come right out and say it. All of it.
More than anything, I find that there's fear in my heart. Fear of what's happening. Fear of what I don't know.Fear of what's to come..
Everyday seems to be a struggle. And deep down, in the pit of my stomach, there's dread. Quite a bit of it. I dread what I fear is inevitable. I'm scared that there's a clock ticking by somewhere, counting down the seconds till everything that's been happening in my country blows up in our faces and somebody else decides to take control.
It's consumed every bit of me. It's taken over my consciousness, and my subconsciousness, seeping into my dreams and turning them into my worst nightmares...
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