«I can’t take my trike, but Goliath has to go,» I said, «I'm not going without my bear,» and mom said that we had to be very light to reach Europe. «Look at me,» she said, «I do not take anything either.» I looked and it was true – my mother only had her very big blue eyes and the bag with my medicine, two sweaters, a pair of sneakers and a toothbrush, because, you know, we can never go anywhere without washing our mouth. «I ain’t going without Goliath,» I said again, and I grabbed my bear very hard and put his hat on him because it was always falling to the ground.
Bombs began to fall as we ran down Al Warsha Street. I remembered Zeytun, the goose we had in the back yard, and I yelled to uncle Malek that we had to go back because Zeytun was made of feathers and feathers don’t weigh a crumb, but he shook his head and yelled back that Europe didn’t let animals get in, «Europe only lets people get in,» he said while we kept running.
On the third night in the desert I saw what the others carried with them.
Cousin Omran was ten and carried a bar of soap, two crayons, a sack of chocolate almonds, and the sweater with a lion on the front; cousin Yasmina was seventeen and carried shampoo, her cell phone, a nightgown with red and blue squares and a pair of sneakers; aunt Nadia would go round and round the engagement ring on her finger because she couldn’t bring anything else; grandmother Muna carried the home keys and her passport in a very small plastic bag; grandfather Malek carried the money to pay the men of the boat and a Koran wrapped in old newspapers.
On the sea we were so light the boat kept going up and down, up and down, and there were times it stopped up there on the salty air because it had no weight to drop again. Once a big wave wanted to sink us, and we all started to throw water very quickly because suddenly we had become very heavy. Sometimes the sun hit us so hard that we could not see each other, as if we were all disappearing, so light we had become again. In these moments, I grabbed Goliath even harder, so he couldn’t disappear through the clouds.
We were so light that the wind shot us to this beach. For a long time, I could not understand what had happened to me, why I cannot move, nor breath, nor even open my eyes buried in the sand. But now, I even know why I still grab Goliath so hard with my right hand. It’s because Europe is so light that she’s always going up, and up, and up, and doing that she will have to take me with her all the time, so weightless I am too.