October 3, 2024

I have previously dreamt of warplanes and Israeli soldiers while lying on my bed in the southern suburbs of Beirut, Lebanon; later, on another bed in my grandmother’s house in Nabatieh district in the South of Lebanon; and finally, on a third bed in our house in Khiam, near the border with Palestine, as I grew older. Those dreams had not yet haunted my bed in Canada, but some things in life, once they begin, we can never know when they will truly end.

There were many signs that war in Lebanon was imminent, and that’s exactly what drove me to leave. And there it began, raging in the very areas where I grew up, calling forth those warplane dreams and pulling me back to the place I had once left.

A memory, blurred in time yet vivid in my mind, surfaces: I remember racing to the balcony of our home in the southern suburbs to catch sight of aircrafts almost at eye level. We lived on the seventh floor of a building shared by both Shia and Sunni residents, but back then, those distinctions held no significance for me. The blue sky was filled with warplanes, and the sight was terrifying—an intense terror that you could only stare at in disbelief. It suddenly felt like a scene from a video game. Gray planes, which should have been roaring, dropped bombs that incinerated everything below while leaving the upper floors unscathed. And somewhere on a high balcony, a girl wondered if the planes could see her and whether an Israeli pilot might bomb her just for standing there—even though she had committed no offense. She could only hear her own thoughts, channeling a fear that seeped into her memory. The sound of fear was an eerie silence in a scene that should have been deafening, filled only with the heavy echo of thoughts too immense to contain.

I lost my connection to video games after that. I completely stopped playing and developed a strong aversion to anything that roared. Since then, warplanes and their pilots—capable of annihilating me—have invaded my dreams. Sometimes, I would find myself running beneath them, desperately trying to evade their missiles, only to have them close in, jolting me awake while I continue to run, my gaze fixed on the sky. This was, of course, before the era of drones. Technology doesn’t diminish the intensity of the post-traumatic disturbances that have haunted every Lebanese over the years, driving so many of us to leave. But who said that leaving heals trauma? And more importantly, who said that leaving is enough to change anything about the reality we continue to endure?

I am not sure how much time has passed since that memory—decades, undoubtedly. Today, the dreams persist, but reality has become far grimmer, and that same girl remains trapped on that balcony in Lebanon, deep in the recesses of my mind. She may no longer face immediate danger, yet she struggles to believe in her own safety. Now, countless others take her place, ensnared on their own balconies, gazing into the closed eye of death, too afraid to blink and awaken it. Does death possess an eye that opens when stirred? Does it wear the gaze of an Israeli soldier? Does it see through a military Israeli lens?

That day, my mother, father, and sister were all at home. Today, our house is empty of us. Israeli warplanes must have flown over that same balcony—this time unmanned—before targeting the buildings nearby.

“Hello, Dad?”
“Yes, sweetheart, I’m safe. Please stop watching the news.”

“Hello, Mom?”
“Don’t hang up, my dear. I’m so tired, sweetheart.”

Their words cut deep into my heart. I realize that on that day, I hadn’t thought about what might have been on their minds or whether fear had consumed them. The past suddenly feels heavy. The present weighs me down. The dreams press upon me. The sound of airstrikes on TV shakes me to my core. I still have so much emotional detachment to navigate before I can live like a normal human being, as death’s gaze lingers over my country, my family, and my people—snatching lives, tearing the eyes from the living, and colonizing their dreams.

On that day, and many others that followed, I wished I could leave Lebanon. Today, I long to return—specifically to that day in my memory. I wish we could all return to that house, back when my only concern was my fear. “I am tired, sweetheart. Violent airstrikes. Explosions. A little girl in a red dress ascends to the sky. Children with beautiful faces do not survive the bombings. Highly advanced technology. Buildings leveled to the ground.” More traumas have been added to the old ones. Has anything really changed with distance?

Planes fly over Brighton, Ontario. The rain falls, the thunder rumbles, and my body trembles. Nothing has changed—except for the growing nostalgia and the ever-expanding gaze of death.

More English articles by Azza Tawil.