A Nation on Fire

 

Pablo Picasso

 In remembrance of the victims of bigotry and violence everywhere in the world…

 

The sounds of street dogs barking madly outside the house woke me up in the middle of the night; my room was pitch black. I reached for the alarm clock, it was 2 a.m. I felt troubled and was sweating heavily as I got out of bed. A myriad of fast images went flashing before my eyes, through my mind; I must have been dreaming. These were images of my grandmother, who passed away five years ago, in her house, and many smiling faces of my family who gathered around the dinner table sharing laughs and stories. It was a peaceful scene, but something happened towards the end of the dream that troubled me. Someone started knocking on the door heavily and screaming.

The feelings of disturbance accompanied me the whole morning. It was already a troublesome day, with clashes between Islamists and police force taking place, following the overthrow of the Muslim Brotherhood President. 

That afternoon, my father’s family gathered at grandma’s house, where my uncle currently lived, to watch the news and have dinner together. The situation was intense, and clashes heated up after the police started to evacuate the Islamists sit-ins, with hundreds of causalities taking place. The whole family was watching the news closely over dinner. For a fraction of a second, the scene froze. I remembered my dream.

The next moment we started hearing a heavy knocking on the door by what appeared to be a dozen of angry people. They were shouting and ordered us to open the door, otherwise they threatened to burn us alive. They were calling us pagans, traitors, pigs and other names. 

Screams, cries and prayers filled the inside of the house. My father and one of my uncles went upstairs to bring their guns, and my other uncle gathered the women and young children at the back of the house. We started hearing heavy gunshots just outside the door. I closed my tearful eyes and recited the Hail Mary.