Status Updates From The Hair of The Pigeon

In the end I surrendered, as if I was a star that would somehow fall into place on the canvas of the universe.

A sudden wave of wistfulness came over me, like an arid desert that carries the pulse of a rain that touched its heart in a distant past.

In some ways, being a foreigner in Denmark was like being a Palestinian in Syria.

We swirled around like only brothers could. It was a flare of joy, as if a bolt of lightning had fired in my heart! Time dissolved. I was reunited with my brother Ismaeil. Ismaeil whom I loved, not with my heart or head, but with the only part of me that will live forever, my soul.

The truth was, we had nowhere to go. We had never been granted a home in Syria. What we had left was a temporary residence, and in exchange we were granted a temporary refuge in Denmark. The privilege of freedom was staring right at us.

Home is the place where all attempts to escape end

Babel told me he had two children back in Saida. He was twentyone, just a year older than myself. He had no parents, no education, and like every other Palestinian, no passport. This was Babel’s second trip. In a moment of silence, between the crackling of the radio, I asked Babel why he didn’t stay in Europe. “And die a slow death, you mean.” He sighed.

The men who tortured, killed, and then went home to their wives, prayed together. The men who took everything, who destroyed our own home, prayed. They all prayed.

Yarmouth was home to a tangle of fates. Each and every one of them able to tell tales of friendship, love, catastrophe and betrayal.