Mine

"These books are going to save you. They are the best weapon you can have. Why don't you study?! People die just to have an opportunity to study! It's 8:00! You must be at school now!" My mother shouted at me because I was late for school this morning. While pointing to my backpack she lectured me about that education is a way to fight the occupation. I nodded but in my mind I had a different idea: in a way, the occupation is one of the best things that happened to us. We study to fight them, so if they weren't here we wouldn't care very much about education, right? Or is it just the way the elderly put it to us? The older members of my family always demonstrate education as a cure to a disease but I think education is not a cure. It's immunity. If we were learned in the first place we wouldn't have been under occupation, I guess!

I know it's strange for an education-advocate to be late for school, but the truth is that life is more important. Priorities. And my priority is to stay alive, biologically alive.

Personally, I've been living in misery all my life. But it is still called "Life". Yes, I am desperate but from desperation hope comes. The more miserable you have lived, the more likely you find happiness. Because happiness is relative and almost everything is better than "living" in this shithole. Wait!! If my city is a shithole what does that make us?!

I stopped talking to myself at that point and took my heavy backpack and put it on my back. I halted a bit at the door and looked at my mother and my little sister in her arms. Our "house" is a caravan donated to us after we lost our home in the last war. I didn't look at its walls. There are no memories to be embraced there. It is just a symbol for humiliation and surrender. I left and shut the door behind me.

I wasn't going to school. Instead, I was heading to the coast where from I would be taken to the future by a ferry. I've worked after school for almost a year to save some money to buy a ticket and to have financial security when I leave.  I worked in restaurants, factories, security, fishing, and so many other jobs. It occurred to me to stay here several times but I knew I couldn't rely on working here, even if I worked for 15 hours a day.

Today was the day I leave everything behind but I wanted to make sure no one knew I was going before I was gone. I didn't take a crowded road to the port. I couldn't take risks showing myself to anyone, especially that I've worked as a fisherman and my face would be recognized there. If someone identified me at the port they won't stop questioning me: Why aren't you at school?! Do you want to work in fishing again? Do you want to buy some fish? How are you? Where are you going?

I headed up north toward the border and from there I meant to turn to west to the coast. My plan didn't go well. As I reached the northern border I quickly changed my direction to the west. There were no signs to follow, just the electric fence. I only had to walk by it until I reach the coast. I knew the walk would be long and tiring in the desert even if the sun wasn't vertical on my head yet.

My backpack was tremendously heavy so I dropped it on the rough-untraveled desert to walk lighter and faster. I walked for four or five light steps before my foot stepped on a land mine. It didn't explode at once. It was the kind that doesn't explode unless you remove the pressure. Their explosion may not be fatal sometimes. It might only amputate your leg and in this desert it means death but in a slower and more painful manner. My leg would be chopped and my genitals burnt and then I would bleed to death, especially that the temperature is very high so my blood would turn into a river.

I had to focus. Just don't let go. Keep the pressure on the mine. Mines are like us in a way. If the ruler keeps his boots very tight on our heads we will keep silent but if he becomes a little lenient we would repel. We would explode. And I am the master of the mine. It is mine. Just keep your foot on it.

Hadn't I dropped my backpack I would carefully put it on the mine instead of my left foot. My mother shouted at me hours ago, "These books are going to save you!" She was right.

It is 12:45 now. The school bell will ring in less than thirty minutes and all of the students will go to their houses.

I intended to contact my family when I'm far away from our coast. The ferry is far away now, taking my dreams of a better future with it.

My leg is numb. I don't feel it.

This morning started with a dream of a better future but now all I'm dreaming about is having any future. The sun is getting hotter and hotter and if I faint I will absolutely die today. And the chance of fainting is very possible because I always get nausea under a scorching sun and this deprived me of many EP classes.

I love sports. The spirit and the fight you put to win a game. It is just like life except that life is not a game. There is no "retry" option in real life and you don't get to get a bonus life. In the real world, once you die there isn't coming back until resurrection day.

I didn't die from a missile coming from above but I might die now from a mine under my feet. I wonder if they will mourn me as a hero martyr! This very morning I was running away from here, from them and from the others but mostly from myself. I find it strange that life and death are the most paradoxical things yet they always linked to each other! There is no life without death and there can't be death if there wasn't a life.

The sun is falling toward the west but it is still broiling.