Headshot

AFTER CHECKING THE TIME, I realized that our appointment is an hour later. As I still had a little time. I decided to take a walk. I love strolling in the streets of this city. Roja, my younger sister, calls it the city of a thousand colors. I like her descriptions. In the future, when she grows up, I think she will become either a poet or a writer.

I once heard my neighbors say that, a very long time ago, where we live was once a Greek territory. The tight, narrow streets are full of beautiful colorful buildings that are interlocked and compact. They always look clean because of the abundance of rain in this part of the world.

I was about to attend an interview, which had occupied my mind considerably because it would be the first time that I would attempt to tell someone my whole story, from the beginning. I still wasn’t sure whether attending the interview

Was the right thing to do or not, but it was too late to give up.

I had promised them several times that I would be there. As always, my mind was so busy that I didn't even notice when I arrived.

I had arrived at the news agency. I stopped and looked at the building from afar. That day, the weather in Istanbul was so cold that I could feel it in my bones. After having been there for two years, I was still not accustomed to the weather.

Standing in front of the building, I felt an odd anxiety. How should I begin? Was it even worth mentioning?

I took a deep breath and ventured forth. Now that I had agreed to do it, I had to do my best; otherwise, if I didn’t tell the story, no one would believe that era of history. I kept walking. It’s only a regular interview, I thought to myself. No need to worry.

After entering the building, the first thing that attracted my attention was the overcrowding of the employees. It exciting to visit a news agency. I found that it was much larger than I imagined. Before thinking about which way to go, a friendly lady came up to me and said in her beautiful British accent

"Hello. Miss Roysa Zahavy, right?"

"Yes, that's me. Sorry for being somewhat late," I replied.

It seemed that I was more stressed than I thought. All of my English knowledge had suddenly gone from my mind. Although I'm not a bad English speaker, in this particular situation, I had even forgotten how to speak in my mother-tongue.

My doctor once told me that it would take me a while to adapt to regular urban life because I had spent a long time dealing with a complicated condition.

The lady smiled and shook my hand.

"You are just on time. There is no problem. I'm Nicka Jones. The guys are waiting for you upstairs. This way, please."

I followed her. Guys? How many? I was beginning to regret coming here, but it was too late.

We entered a large room. Three men and one woman stood up when they saw us. Gently, I greeted them individually. They responded with a delay and looked at me in surprise. What was it that surprised them?

Perhaps they were expecting to see a very tall, heavyset girl with a long stitch line on her forehead and a boyish hairstyle. Seeing their faces made me smile for a moment, but I just lowered my head. I had already been greeted in this way once before. Just then, Nicka Jones broke the silence and brought a chair for me. I thanked her and sat down.

Little by little, the silence subsided and everyone introduced themselves. Unlike how I imagined, communicating with journalists isn't that hard.

They seemed good people with no political intentions; however, I had yet to find out what they wanted to know. Eventually, the conversation got a little serious after a few minutes. My mind was blown as Nicka Jones told me what the plan was. Were they joking with me? I couldn't stop myself and interrupted her.

"A book?! Wasn't ... wasn't it only supposed to be an interview for the newspaper?"

Then, one of the men aided Nicka when he said, "Admit it, it was a difficult task to have you come here. If we had mentioned the book from the beginning, we might never have seen you. Roysa, don't sell yourself short. The world has to know the likes of you. Trust me. There is no danger for you."

I looked at him and replied in the most innocent tone possible. "I'm not prominent. Believe me. I'm merely one of the many whom I knew back in the days. Anyone else would've done the same, this book won’t be interesting to anyone. I ... I don't even know what to say. I mean, I don't want you to waste your time because I know that this is a futile thing to do."

"Please, leave it to us to decide whether it is futile or not, OK? Listen, Roysa. We only need you to narrate your memories. We will give you a voice recording device. You can bring it back to us whenever you wish. It doesn't even matter from what point you start. And speak the way you want, deal?" Nicka said.

I kept silent, and they were all looking at me.

At that moment, I don't know why I agreed, but I did. Perhaps I was afraid to be myself with so many people looking at me. However, I did feel more comfortable when they told me that I didn’t need to describe my recollections in their presence. I nodded gently and saw the satisfied smiles on their faces.

After exiting the building, I made my way home with the voice recording device. I still believed that I wasn’t a notable person. Only geographic determinism and a few other factors made me seem different now. Then, an inner voice asked me, if they wish to know about those days, why don’t you tell them?

When I got home, I saw that my mother had woken up and was looking for me. She still worried a lot when I left the house, and I understood her concern. She sleeps a lot because of the medicines that her doctor prescribes. Sometimes, I would make her go out for a stroll to get some fresh air. She was relieved to see me. I kissed her face and went to my room.

I was experiencing a unique thrill as if being drawn into the past since waking up in the morning. My doctor had told me once that the nightmares that never leave me would go away if I retell everything once. Now I had a strong incentive to speak without even having to look into someone's eyes.

You know what? I make a deal with myself: not to give in the tape if I'm not satisfied with the outcomes of my story. So there is no need to worry. I'm just going to reveal my recollections.

It took me a few days until the memories fully recreated in my mind. Within these few days, I turned the recording device multiple times to record nothing but silence. But it is different tonight. As I closed my eyes, I saw the twenty-year-old Roysa. I accompanied her to see where she will lead me to. I could never describe things orderly since childhood.

I let the several-years-ago Roysa tell me whatever she wants. She took my hand and brought me to the middle of a critical operation beyond the city borders on a warm, stressful summer night...

“We’re 10 km away from the center of the abandoned building. Like the previous days, only one will enter the city, and two will wait beside the road in the car. Two will control the security of the city intangibly. We have no other option but to have the first one to proceed into the city.”

This wasn’t the first operation I was about to do on my own. This was the high pressure of war. All companions had the same experiences.

“Roysa, any questions?” the commander asked, his voice soothing yet decisive.

I stood up. “No, sir.”

“So you are ready? We will be in an hour.”

“Yes, I’m ready.”

It wasn’t crucial whether I was ready or not.

Our numbers were falling shorter every moment, as the enemy’s number grew. We needed more ammunition.

The enemy forces had occupied half of the city for the previous month. Before the invasion, some militia had stored ammunition sent to us by other countries in several abandoned construction zones. We needed to prevent the enemy from obtaining them. At all costs.

Many of Kobane’s residents had migrated away, and the city had fallen silent. The silence made my task more challenging. Any reckless move could get me killed. I had to move quickly and quietly.

I braided my hair, which now I combed only once per month, carelessly. I looked at the broken mirror on the wall and caught my eyes. Their normal green opaqueness wasn’t pleasant. I looked away immediately to prepare my weapon, a 2007 Russian Dragunov. I put it on my shoulder and donned a long black veil. The enemy wasn’t likely to suspect me, even if I were detected.

The hardship and danger of this operation were estimated at a 50 percent success rate.

We’d lost some of our best in this route. We lost them, hushed its deep pain in our hearts, and raised anew. The thing we had to do every day.

I was prepared to go.

We reviewed the plan once more. It was a little past midnight. My route was behind the hills, toward the west. My attire was completely black, ensuring anyone noticing me was impossible.

I’d always been afraid of the darkness, but not now. I’d seen so many horrifying things, nothing would trouble me, until my hair went white—if I lived that long. I believed that fear, too, had an ending. Fear cannot defeat a person who doesn’t let it.

This much brutality was way too much for a twenty-year-old girl. My policy mind wasn’t even ripe yet, and I hadn’t been able to reason out a logical reason for war. Nevertheless, I was at the center of the maelstrom, and fighting was survival.

Some comrades were assigned to different positions to watch from afar.

I reached the city. My beautiful Kobane, the city of my childhood, didn’t look much familiar anymore now. I could recall pleasant memories of this city more than anyone else.

I stopped behind the first building and pulled out my weapon. I had proved myself. Finding the center of their foreheads took me less than a minute. I checked my surroundings with the sniper scope, then repeated it every few steps.

The route wasn’t long, but my slow progression would stretch it to about two hours. I wished I had a pair of eyes behind my head, too. I sharpened my hearing to assess the sounds behind me. Dying could be faster than caution.

War movies always portrayed people rolling on the ground, still firing after being shot. Reality wasn’t like that. Many times I’d seen it. When someone got shot, they fell to the ground where they were standing. The end. Someone’s life was taken as quickly as that.

A horrific silence dominated the city. The place, which was once loud, was dipping in a fearsome silence.

For months, most of the people of Kobane had had fled to Suruj of Turkey, through the land border. As many as five hundred had left the city in the last several weeks.

I’d witnessed some of them passing while securing their route along. That was precisely the day I’d decided to send Roja and my mother to Turkey.

I glanced at my watch. I had about two hours until dawn. I ducked behind the short wall of a half-destroyed house and reached the back of the next building.

I was patient. To act recklessly in war was equal to death.

I continued after waiting for a while, until a male voice stopped me in my tracks. I didn’t understand or speak Arabic, but the enemy’s voice was familiar and painful.

I took cover behind the structure and checked the perimeter meter by meter, with the scope, to locate the source of the voice, after ensuring there was no one behind me.

With entirely black clothes, long, ugly beards, and several weapons on their shoulders, it wasn’t hard to detect them. From the way they looked to the way they spoke Arabic, it made me sick.

This enemy was two narrow alleys from me. He was talking to someone out of sight.

I took a deep, quiet breath and put my finger on the trigger. Killing this black demon was easy, but now wasn’t the time. I’d only act if he came toward my hiding spot.

The sound of a gunshot and killing one of them would cause chaos and aggravate my task. I switched off my walkie-talkie not to make any noise.

He was talking and laughing.

What was wrong with him?

Shortly, two other demons joined them, and the four talked before moving on as a group, away from me. I waited until they were no longer visible.

I holstered my weapon. I needed to keep going.

Several months ago, ISIS had attacked Kobane in three fronts and succeeded in breaking the city’s defense. They breached from the east and considered themselves the owners of our city.

As of now, ISIS had occupied three hundred sixty villages. Not an insignificant number.

With endless progression, from one community to another, they kept repeating a designed machine. They were molded into this. They didn’t care about anyone.

ISIS explored cities and villages; kept the old and the children hostages in exchange for substantial prices; took the women as captives; of course, taught the young boys to recruit for themselves.

No one went free, and if others refused to cooperate, they would lose their heads. Many preferred to die.

When one hostile takeover was complete, they moved on to the next village.

Our group’s duty was to guard the solely unimpaired front of the city. That was why we’d settled away from Kobane, near the border of Turkey.

After the invasion of half of the city, a reinforcement of one hundred fifty joined Kobane from the north. It was our highest motivation to win.

It reinforced my mission for the ammunitions located in different parts of the city. Each day, one of us had to go to collect as many as possible.

Although there were still those who lived in Kobane, their number had dwindled. It was no longer safe for them to roam the city; we couldn’t blend in. The residents were in hiding, didn’t even go out for their basic needs. Many had been killed, and many had been taken as captives.

I inched closer to the vacant structure, about twenty meters away. The enemy didn’t seem to have been there much; there was no noise.

I took advantage of the reclusion and sat for a while. Fatigue crashed down on me. I opened the cloth covering my face to wash. I ate a piece of bread and forced myself to carry on.

The window of the opposite building caught my attention. An innocent face was peeking out. She seemed to be about ten or eleven, and her eyes were sad. I could see it even from my distance.

I flash a smile, and she smiled back. With a gesture, I indicated for her to go away from the window, and she obeyed, closing the curtain. Hopefully she and her family could continue to survive. Looking outside would only endanger them. Being a captive to the enemy. We needed to save the remaining Kobane girls.

Time passed quickly. It was going to be light sooner than ever.

I received a message. They were right to do so. This operation was taking longer than previous days.

I replied and reported the situation. My calm was something hard fought for.

A battlefield had to be experienced to be understood. There, fear was inevitable, and everyone was afraid of death.

Although that fear would always accompany anyone with this experience, people don’t often want to show it.

When a dangerous assault was made by the enemy, every being, no matter man or woman, would lie down and shoot aimlessly, cry, shriek, and call God. Even the most experienced soldiers.

But they get up and make themselves carry on, after the assault finished, as if their faces weren’t wet from tears. That was the philosophy of war.

Another aftershock of war I experienced every day was my soul’s bisection. Understanding death in childhood truly hurt me. Like other little girls, I couldn’t sleep at night, and even had fevers for a week when I would hear of a death.

Now, it was as if a new Roysa was discovered within me. I was still scared of war and bloodshed, but I wasn’t afraid of killing these filthy beings.

I feared death, but not as much as captivity.

Yet, I still couldn’t sleep at night, and I suffered throughout the days. I kept falling, and feeling it with every ounce of my soul.

Diar used to say, “War means to fall to the depths of humanity for both parties. Here, it doesn’t matter what side you are on. We all fall.” I kept whispering this to myself. Like I, he hated war. Remembering his face made me sob. Sigh, this was the only thing that made me cry in any condition and anywhere.

But now it was time to finish the operation.

I got to the building and looked around. The door was almost broken, and it was easy to open. I entered. Because of the damage, it looked like no one had spent many years here. The first thing I noticed on arrival was the high odor and the sound of water droplets as if it’d been dripping for more than a few weeks.

First, I had to make sure no one was here, as I had a gun in my hand. I slowly searched the different parts of the house. When I was convinced it was empty, I had to speed up. I knew where to look, although there wasn’t much left in the house.

That was a trophy for us. Tomorrow the operation would be over, and our ammunition would no longer be in enemy hands. I gathered all my strength and threw a few guns on my shoulder. I couldn’t do more, and no one was expecting me anymore.

When I got out of the house, a little of air was clear. I had to hurry and get out of here sooner. I felt more tired now as my load got heavier, but there was no way I had to go that fast anymore. I’d felt so strange the night before; I didn’t know why. Maybe it was because I wanted to get in again and walk in Kobane.

The clear air helped me see the face of the city better. It was worse than I thought—almost nothing was left, and the only sound sometimes heard was the sound of a dog barking and the firing of a gun.

Again, that damn cry came to me. It was as if gray dust was sitting on my city. All the buildings that had collapsed looked like a designed scene, as if they were trying to show the suffering of the Kobane families together.

I remembered the days when we were playing in the alley behind this alley. The days after working on the farm, we were out of work and looking for new games.

I couldn’t believe that the city that I now had to travel through with fear was my childhood city. Now the living people were dying for nothing, and I had not yet found a convincing reason even in my mind. They’d torn apart the whole country; it was a long time ago, but we still didn’t want to believe that Kobane was no longer our city, and we had to accept the rule of these black devils.

Maybe if we also believed that life in this city was over and it was no longer for us, we would go to Turkey with many others. Not a bad idea; I also did for my family. What were the little kids guilty of that the big guys and heads of this world couldn’t agree on the most basic things?

Just when I thought I had completed the operation, several enemy forces were coming toward me. I stopped and immediately went the same route slowly, but one of them noticed me and at the last moment saw me pointing with a hand.

They said things out loud that I didn’t understand. All I had to do was run away.

I know you might like to hear the story of how I got rid of a few people and continued on my way, but this part of the truth of the war is not like movies. Sometimes you just have to borrow two legs and run away.

I rapidly redirected to the side alley and heard the arrow just behind me. I was breathing; I had to hide because the risk of escaping was high given the number of people who were approaching me quickly. I

Entered the first semi-demolished building I saw.

Their voices were getting closer to me each time, as they thoughtlessly shot, imagining they wanted to scare me, or maybe they were happy to see another girl. When they saw one woman, they lost a little of their intellect.

I remembered Naazan. I always remembered her at such moments. She had elegant, white arms, the beauty of which

Was doubled with her long nails. It was as if she was always smiling with her round black eyes. She was in a trench when it was so close for enemies to capture her; when she used her last bullet on herself. Her beautiful eyes were closed forever, but we carried on, cried, suffered, and raised stronger than ever.

I pressed my dry lips together and listened carefully to their steps. They seemed to had stopped a little further. I sat under brick stairs and pointed my gun at the entrance door. With the angle I had, I could take them down as soon as they would come in.

I could hear their steps approaching closer to me. Now I could see the shade of one of them beside me. I aimed at where I knew his head would be. At such moments, I could see my entire life passing in front of my eyes, for everything was possible. Maybe those were the last moments of my life.

I couldn't understand their language, but I noticed that two of them parted to search the front. Well, it was excellent: now there was only one left. I waited for him to appear.

At full strength, I was ready to take him down. He entered, paused, and looked around him. Three ... Two ... One ... And I shoot. The sound of my shooting echoed in the building, and that black demon fell on the ground.

I got up and went opposite of the direction the other two had taken. I heard them returning toward the gunshot area.

I was running like never I had before in the backstreets of Kobane, panting. I saw my father and mother calling me from that direction. Roja, Kobane residents, and my dear Diar were also calling me. The walls of this city were calling me. And this nightmare finished.

I left town and see the vehicle coming to me with speed. I could not talk. Others knew it well that it wasn't the time to ask questions; we knew each other well by that time. They gave me a bottle of water, which I drank unceasing to calm down a bit.

I pulled out my mobile phone and turned it on to see my Diar smiling at me as ever. The date displayed on my phone caught my attention. That was when I realized why I felt different that day: it was my birthday. Smiling, I remembered my best birthday night, and our last family celebration…

One, two, three

Everyone clapped, and I blew out the 17 birthday candles. I knew that it wasn't simply to hold such a birthday party for my family, for we had to invite the neighbors to the parties in this house.

There was no compulsion. But my father believed that we had to share the happiness if we were to stay together in the hard times. It is a tradition of the original Kurds. And now, rejoicing among the Kurds of the country was vanishing because of the problems. Tonight was an exclusive, unrepeatable night for the guests and me.

By "the neighbors," I don't mean only the people of the alley. We and three other families lived in this very enclosure, and our homes were around a central yard. We had been living this way for years and were almost like a family.

Our house was a little away from the city, although the distance was short enough to walk. The house was ancient. As far as I know, my father had spent his childhood here, and perhaps so had many others before him. Its age is not precisely known, although it wasn't hard to estimate, considering the cracks and seams on the walls and the roof. The roof would drip when it rained in the winter.

Once, it dripped so hard that it collapsed. My father had to work day and night for a week on his own to repair it. My little sister, Roja, would always say excitedly that the house would fall onto us if a strong wind blew. Although my parents laughed at those times, I could read it in my father's eyes that he saw it as an unsaid expectation for him to fix the house.

But I still loved our house. There was a big pool in its center, and green trees covered its perimeter. There used to be a furnace where we took turns to bake bread at the end of the yard near the door. That routine had gone on for several years. I loved the smell of a fresh loaf from that oven.

My father had worked on the cotton farm since he was 12. He’d paid for his family's needs ever since. The small cotton farm had belonged to my grandfather years ago. It was a beautiful farm within walking distance from the house.

It was past ten o’clock, and our guests leaving. I went with them out of the house. Then I stared at the beautiful sky of Kobane. Thank you, Lord, for tonight will always be one of my best nights ever.

I locked the door and pulled its curtain. Our home had gone silent, and Roja was quickly cleaning the house.

“Leave it be, sister,” I said. “Go to sleep, or you won’t be able to wake up in the morning. Go, honey. Mom, you too. Let the dishes be. Leave the work to me from now on.”

My mother dried her wet hands with the corner of her skirt. “It’s all done”

Smiling, she sat beside me on the floor. I looked at her. Her gentle eyes shone with vivacity. Quietly, she proceeded.

“Congratulations!”

Roja laughed hard from the other side of the room.

“Congratulations on what?” I asked. “What are you two talking about?”

“Mrs. Saryo asked that you marry her son!” my mother said.”

“You missed her going on about how you’ve turned into such a fine lady and how she suddenly directed the conversation toward her son. You remember him, right? He’s doing his military service at the moment.”

I looked askance at Roja, saying, “Quit laughing, child. Now, who even wants to get married? Don’t make such plans for me.”

My father came out of the next room. With a gesture, I hushed my mother into not mentioning such things in his presence.

She kissed my cheek and got up. Honestly, the whole affair was thrilling.

My proposal gave me the unusual feeling of growing up, the sense of turning into a lady. But I acted as if I was unaffected by this news. I knew my mother was happy in a different way that night. I understood her feeling well. She’d wanted a son since my childhood, but she’d lost the ability to have children after giving birth to Roja. People in my country commonly had at least three or four children. I guess we were the smallest family in Kobane.

My father turned on the TV and lowered its sound. That time of night when he watched the news was stressful for me. Talk of trouble had been echoing across the country for a long time. We could hear the whispers of civil war emanating from the big cities. However, this matter had not reached the Kurdish regions yet, and besides, my father was sure everything would settle soon. This wasn’t a serious matter. He just followed the news carefully and nodded.

“What’s it saying, Dad? It’s not over yet, is it?” I asked.

“Not yet. Come and check it out, Roysa. It’s getting worse.”

I moved closer to the screen. The people and the military forces were locked in severe conflict.

“Don’t fear, my dear,” he said. “I assure you, this is political and will pass just as quickly as the other happenings in the world. Don’t worry.”

I knew my father was more worried than I was whenever he talked like that.

“No, I’m not afraid. It’s just that I don’t want anyone to die; it makes me so upset.”

He was nodding along again. I knew my father well. He was too kindhearted to understand what I was telling him. To not feel what I was feeling. Death troubled him, too.

I went to my room, which I shared with Roja. Seeing her sleeping, innocent face always melted my heart. I sat in front of the small mirror on the wall, and the little lamp on the dresser choked out the darkness pressing around me. I unwrapped my long hair and combed it.

My mother always said my hair was like silk. Like every other girl, such flattery filled me with joy. She was right. I hadn’t cut it since childhood. It was black, straight, and always shining.

With patience and passion, I continued to comb, allowing it to relax me. I remembered my suitor and smiled in the mirror. But my smile soon faded.

When would the war end?

The alarm clock woke me early in the morning. I barely opened my eyes.

“Roja, wake up,” I said.

She got up, squinting, and sat there. She was just like me. We never complained or avoided going to school after waking up early. Perhaps it was because we knew our parents woke up much earlier than us to go to the farm.

First, I had to accompany Roja to school. To reach it, we had to take a packed road—a path so narrow we had to walk single file.

Her school was a two-floor house with an ancient brick facade. Kobane was known as the most deprived city in Syria, but no other Kurdish residential areas there had a good quality of life. Kurds had always been the victims of the most oppression throughout history, and most of us didn’t even have legal citizenship. It translated into the lowest quality urban facilities for us and unambiguous future for Roja and me.

However, we had read about it differently in our history lessons. Teachers kept telling us most of Syria’s natural resources were in Kurdistan and that our oil, olive, and wheat production made up more than half of the country’s. Honestly, neither my parents nor I had ever reaped the benefits of those plentiful resources. Either the teachers’ words were to please us, or the problem was elsewhere.

I took Roja to school and returned to the dirt road in a hurry. I was late. I always had to run the path to my school. I noticed the city seemed somewhat unusual that day. A large number of military soldiers were on the streets. My fear increased. Had the war extended there, too?

Our school wasn’t much different from Roja’s in terms of appearance. But I liked mine because I could picture all my dreams within its concrete enclosure. I was a literature student, and I loved it. I imagined a bright future for myself, and I always appreciated how hard my parents worked to take care of us.

Since they started working early in the morning, the least I could do for them was to be a good student and teach this to Roja as well. We knew we must advance. Although we always had to expect unusual events in my country, we had dealt with it, so far. I mean, we didn’t have another option.

I always thought if I had a brother, he could take half the responsibility of running the farm. Seeing my parents aging so quickly wounded my heart. Although I helped them as much as I could after school, my hands got tired quickly.

Everything I did to get stronger—lifting bags of cotton late into the night as I did my studies, asking local farmers for advice, praying to God under the harsh sun—was all in vain.

I sat in the classroom. From the moment we took our seats, talk of the war floated through the room.

Teachers and students said the war had reached us, and the schools might close. It worried me so much because it looked and felt different than the other times there had been whispers of war. My mind was racing, and I was stressed the rest of the day at school.

I wished the lesson would finish sooner so I could take Roja’s hand and go back to the farm. I wanted us all to be together if something went wrong.

When I left school later, I ran the entire way to Roja’s school. The number of soldiers on the streets had increased. My heart almost popped out of my mouth. Roja was waiting for me. I took her hand, and we went home.

I took a deep breath of crisp farm air.

I felt good there. Even if we were broke, or I was exhausted—I wanted to be there forever, and I hoped nothing would disturb our peace.

I didn’t want to worry my parents, so I didn’t talk about the soldiers on the road. I put my satchel aside, washed my face, and started to work. Touching the white, soft cotton gave me a good feeling. Although the task was hard, I always tried to enjoy what I was doing. It made the work much more manageable.

My mother came to me with a big basket of cotton. I took the basket, and she cleansed her forehead sweat with her scarf. She hid all her fatigue behind a smile. I couldn’t hide my fear anymore, so I told her about my day.

“Mom, do you know people here want to riot, too? There were cops everywhere today. It looks like something is happening.”

Mother looked at me.

“No, I haven’t heard anything yet. But it wasn’t unexpected either. People here are frustrated and can’t manage anymore. Your father and I don’t have the heart to do such things, but for those inclined to do so, there’s much to say.”

“Well, thank God you don’t have the heart! Do you actually think I’d let you get involved in such things? Do you even know what this war is about?” I said, confused and shocked.

“Don’t worry Roysa” Mother said, laughing. “None of these matters last forever. These things always happen.”

I hoped it would be as she said. When people spoke with such composure, I jumped to thinking I was making it a bigger deal out of it than it was. I just didn’t want us to be a part of this, really. Sometimes happiness must be forgotten in order to ask God not to let living get any harder.

Nonetheless, it didn’t take long until everyone figured out my worrying wasn’t for nothing. A few months passed, and the war became more intense in Kobane than anywhere else in the country. My mother realized not everything that begins ends so soon.

At times, we didn’t sleep the entire night because of gunshots. Afraid of others coming into the house to harass us, we turned the lights off early. I felt I couldn’t recognize people anymore. Distinguishing friend and foe was difficult in civil war.

Worse than everything else was the devastation of my father’s farm. One morning, he went out to discover half the land burning and the cotton tufts becoming ash. That day was one of our worst days.

Looking out over our destroyed property, we knew we couldn’t complain to anyone about it. We kept silent to prevent more from happening. We weren’t the only family who suffered. Parts of the city burned every day, and the only thing we could do was watch.

I believe silence is the bitterest fact of war. All houses were in shock, and the lights stayed unlit at night. As if aware of it all, the sky didn’t seem beautiful and lucid anymore. We were all sinking in the silence, waiting for the next thing to happen. We followed the news about the assaults at night without ever speaking a word about what we saw.

One morning, when I woke up upset from an unfinished sleep, I noticed my dad getting ready to go somewhere. I heard him telling my mom not to worry, and he would be back soon. That very sentence sent us into fear the moment he closed the door.

As the silence crept day by day and the shots rang out in the night, the schools were suddenly locked up tightly—empty and gray.

We went to the farm for a few hours every day to salvage what we could; however, on that day, we went early to stay busy and distract ourselves from the passing of time and the absence of my father.

When there was no news a little past noon, my mother lost her patience. She couldn’t manage to work anymore. She sat down right there and started to pray, but she was crying as well. We couldn’t figure out where he had gone in that chaos, no matter how much we thought about it.

When it started to get dark, the three of us went toward the road and gazed at its end, waiting for Father. A few minutes later, a car approached. I suddenly started running toward it with my mother following and calling after me.

I only wanted to see my father's face one more time. The car stopped at some distance. My father got out with a rather large packet. He looked at us in bewilderment before letting us tell him about our concerns

“What are you doing here? Are you even aware of what's going on in the city? Who told you to be by the road?” he said sharply.

Evidently, he was more worried than we were.

We went to the house with haste, holding hands. He didn't answer any of our questions as we walked. He only looked around with caution and led us home with quick steps. I looked at the packet in his hand. It was all about it. But I couldn't guess what it contained.

We entered the house. My father locked the door and pulled the curtains. Even my mother, who is very impatient, was silent and was only looking. We were so frightened and were expecting to hear anything. My father eventually spoke

"Gather round here. No one, not even the neighbors, can know about this packet."

We sat beside him. He opened the cover and pulled out a big armament. It was so big that it took me a while to see it from end to end. It was as though I heard nothing anymore.

My mother was crying when my father explained that it was necessary for us. Roja was afraid. But I was only staring at the colossal gun.

What was that fearsome object doing in the middle of our home?

I was thinking at that moment, that how fast everything that we feared was happening to us.

My father put it in our closet and covered it with a blanket. We didn't speak of it anymore for days. My mother looked at the wardrobe with fear every time she passed by it.

I woke up to work on the farm one of those days. No one was at home. I dressed with haste to catch up with them. My eyes stopped at the closet at the last moment.

Now that I was alone, it was the best time to see that scary object once more. The wardrobe opened with a creaking sound. I put the blanket aside to reach the weapon. It had a shiny, wooden body, and was much bigger than what I had seen in the movies.

I lifted it and figured out that it was even heavier than I would have imagined. I lost my balance, but quickly I learned how to hold it.

I went to the mirror to see the armed Roysa. I tried to remember the movies I had watched. I closed an eye and looked through the scope with the other. It didn't look very hard. But that was enough for the day. Anyone could come in.

I put the weapon back where it had been and wrapped it with the blanket, closed the closet, and went out of the home. Unlike what I had imagined, I wasn't afraid of the big object this time:

My new life had begun.