A Sentence About Death
By Asmaa Dwimah
Translated by the ArabLit collective
I would have been happy to die a martyr, but not in the way I see people dying now, as I am afraid that, under tons of rubble, I’ll still be alive, with ash and stones sitting on my body, and, if I die, I’m afraid that my body will be stuck in a crevice that no one can see; I’m afraid that my body will decompose in the air, and that people will breathe me in, wondering about the source of the fresh air on that day, and they won’t know that it is the musky scent of martyrdom; I am afraid that I will die in these difficult days and that my friends will find nothing to do but say “May God have mercy on her” and cry for less than an hour, after which the fear of war and missiles flying around them will overcome them, as they wait for their turn to die; I am afraid that I will die these days and my friends will not find my name among the names of the martyrs because there are so many of them; I am afraid that they won’t be able to get an internet connection, so that they won’t be able to publish some ridiculous instagram “story,” to mourn me by writing my name and maybe my number among the martyrs, and to add some prayers that they copied off Google; I am afraid that the news of my death will reach people a day or a week late, or even later, and one of my greatest fears is of being buried with unidentified people in a mass grave packed with a hundred or two hundred people I do not know, with whom I had no connection in life, while death brought us together in one grave; I am afraid that people will not find my remains and that there will be no tombstone to visit; I am afraid I will come apart with the flying stones, that my remains will be scattered among the neighboring houses and their residents will be surprised, and my family and whoever can reach them will try to assemble my parts the way we assemble a difficult puzzle: the stomach and guts in the middle / the head at the top / the feet at the bottom / the limbs—if they exist—distributed at the edges of the puzzle, and then they will recite the Fatiha for my absent soul; oh God, I do not fear death and I am not afraid of being Your guest, for You are the most generous of the generous, but I am afraid that my name will not be found among the gravestones; I am afraid, oh God, that I will die a death in which my family and those I love will not be able to hold a funeral for me, or that they will not find enough time to recite the Fatiha, because so many of their friends will be packed into the list of the dead that they will not see me in my shroud and print a farewell kiss on my forehead, that they will not be able to shed even a single tear.
Asmaa Dwaima is a Palestinian writer, poet, artist, and occasional dentist. After having been displaced multiple times since October 2023, she is currently sheltering in southern Gaza with her family.