Just when you think that some things in your past have receded into the forgotten lanes of your memory, it all comes back with a jolt in your dreams. A dream so real and a dream that you remember when you wake up in the morning.
In the summer of 1990 when we were touring Iraq, we had seen hundreds of tanks on the way to Basra. Another military exercise, we had thought. Little did we know! Even a stray bullet which had embedded itself on the walls of our caravan-like house gave no warnings.
The first month after Iraq attacked Kuwait, we were stuck in Baghdad. The borders were sealed off. We didn’t even know if we’d get out of the place alive. I was too young to understand the enormity of it all. I couldn’t understand why I wasn’t allowed to go play outside. My father and the other men of the colony would huddle around a radio in the dark. I wonder what they heard, as most of the signals were blocked, the shrill screech shattering the otherwise silent dark of the night. The women whispering in the background. The three children; my brother, another boy my brother’s age and I, were constantly shushed. The sudden rounds of bullets that would wake us up in the middle of the night, bringing my parents to our room.
It seems such a long time ago. Two and a half years of my life spent in Iraq! It seems like another life, perhaps not even mine. Yet every time I read about the happenings in Iraq, I cry a little in my heart. Now, I have even stopped reading. I try pushing it all away. Still, it haunts me, and I know that one day, I have to go back, to relive one of the most beautiful times of my life.