Status Updates From The Slightest Green: A Novel

"Abdul Waheed claims my grandfather sold him this prop-erty," the girl says, her tone tired, as if each word is a heavy stone she has to lift and put down again.

And when his darling Intisar arrived, she redefined his happiness.

They imagined him living a life of ease, enjoying a freedom theyd fantasized each night as they lay their heads on their stiff cots. Indeed, hed tasted such freedom. But his secret open wound thrummed, and there was no salve to heal it, not even the love of a wife or the miracle of a child.

What they wanted more than anything was a picture of home; the image of it was branded on their minds, its wonderful aroma wafting through their nostrils, its tender flavor swirling across their tongues.
Hafez could never capture such things.

Hafez sketched and sketched, yet there were only so many places the men had been-and their imaginations stretched only so far. Their requests gradually petered out like the fading flourish of his pencil trailing the corner of a page.

Like them, Hafez clung to the warmth of his parents against his body for as long as he could, like the flaps of a coat against a strong wind before its evitable chill finally penetrated his bones.

The land of his birth was never named in this new country except to identify terrorists on airplanes. So he'd folded that identity away like an old shirt that no longer fit.

He'd munch on tangy, unripened handfuls directly from the tree in the orchard. The floral taste of the fuzzy skin and tender mound filled his mouth like a bouquet.

To his daughter, a father. He was tethered to other human beings, his actions falling on their lives like rocks breaking away from the hills, crushing unsuspecting, innocent bystanders. Hed believed if he joined the resistance, he could crush his own fear and shame. He wanted to tell his father how he'd felt his spirit fracture inside his body, all the pieces of himself scattered. He was only trying to be whole again

Sorrow prickles her heart like the thorny stem of a rosebush after its fragrant blossom has withered.
Yalla! Tell her now, a voice urges her. Tell her this land is now hers. It is the perfect moment, and yet the words still won't come. How can her granddaughter simply earn it by default, without all of its attendant history, its pain and joy, its loss and triumphs?

birth. He tugged at the gray whiskers on his chin as he studied his photograph, his shoulders stooped like a bent spoon.

Pain of being a bystander

He wanted to ask her if she knew him, but it was much too intimate for this room and it might pierce the new, hardened skin Hafez had grown to make himself impervious to the past. This prison was his eternal present.
"Are you Christian?" he asked instead.

Alhamdullilah, Sitti, Intisar had dutifully responded, her words practiced, as if someone was coaching her in the back-ground. How are you?

His nerves were frayed so thin he was afraid to open his mouth.

Now he was hearing voices. Men hooting in Arabic. He caught their words like pollen drifting on the wind and a vague sense of hope rose in his throat. A warm and sweet taste on his tongue. But instinct made him swallow it back down, the darkness licking at his heels.

His lower teeth are crowded, like a cluster of grave markers.