Story of the first day at school

 

   Story of the first day at school:
✍️Ahmed Omar

I was alarmed by the fact that the media used to describe that age as the age of roses.

 It does not deviate from this description.

I have been very far from the house and its people, and distance has always changed lovers. 

It was a migration, or a journey like an Odyssey. I was afraid to lose my way back.

 The school was not far away, but rather a slingshot. 

I remember that a man took his son with his right hand and took me with his left to that stone school opposite the government house.

 Its name was Al-Qa’immaqamiya (that is how its name was written in cursive.

 Then the names were changed, thinking Among those who changed it was that they did well, and the old names were more honorable than the new ones. 

The man would stop us to greet his friends, then make his way through the crowd in amazement.

 The school was also adjacent to the police station, with its prison, its detainees, and its stable of horses, and it looked exactly like him, with a black iron door and a lame janitor wearing Military uniform. 

He has tattoos on his cheeks and nose, and a pistol dangles from his waist when he falls.

 I entered the school after a photographer took a photograph of me with a camera set up on tripods in the street, covered with a black cloak.

 It was my picture of a terrified face that emerged from the cemetery at night. 

I feared that I would faint after the one I was alarmed when I saw the students laughing and running around in confusion, and I saw angry teachers carrying sticks that sparked sparks and threats in their eyes. 

My hands sweated a lot from fear.

 The man who took me asked a teacher armed with a short stick, as if he was pleading with the students and threatening them with it. 

He asked him about the first class, so he directed him, so he took me with his son. 

To the last room in the series of identical rooms, we released the man and he went on his way, and I was afraid that I would drown in the maze.

 I remained in my place, completely silent. 

The students blocked the door without crossing its threshold, laughing. 

A student extended his hand to me and pulled me. 

I was dizzy, afraid of forgetting the way back home. 

The large student rubbed my head reassuringly, as if he was telling me to lock up for men. 

Then a teacher wearing black glasses entered us. He ordered us to stand alone and I saw my colleagues hugging themselves with their arms, prisoners with their handcuffs. 

We were far from our families, missing them and missing ourselves. 

Be content, be content, be content.

 The bell rang, and the teacher hurried out first, and the children left after him, happy to free their necks for a while. 

Some of them had brought rolls of bread with them. 

I left late, afraid of drowning in the noisy depths.

 I saw the teachers playing volleyball with the little girls, and they overpowered them, and I thought I felt sorry for them.

 I dared to step away from the classroom, after memorizing my way back to it. 

She went out into the copper rays of the sun, taking cover against the school wall, and then crossed her courtyard, which was a little larger than a volleyball court. 

I reached sunset, looking for the spring of life that Al-Khidr had searched for, and I saw an unsullied spring with an iron grille, overlooking the station’s stable of horses, and the smell of the gentle horses’ dung, scented with the scent of grass and old hay, was sweet to me. 

I returned with the ringing of the bell. I saw the students rushing to their classes, so I followed their example, and we hugged each other. 

I almost suffocated from each other's embrace, and the time ran out again when the return bell rang.

 I stood bewildered, and a teacher saw me and looked into my eyes and said with certainty, “You are an orphan.” 

I was amazed at her insight.

 The student who pulled me saw me and stroked my head like an adult. 

I said to him crying: 

I lost my way back. 

He asked me about my home, so I described it to him, and he led me by the hand. 

When we reached it, I was surprised that my little brother had lost his way back. 

He died while my family was crying for him, but I was happy to return.

 My brother was at the age of roses, so my mother lost her mind after his death, and we tied her with chains. 

She could not believe his death.

 She thought they had buried him alive.

 Then she started going to his grave every day and digging it up, and I used to see her from behind the bars of the school door, supporting her arrival. 

On her shoulder, she learned lately that describing our lives as the age of thorns is better than describing them as the age of roses, as thorns are longer-lived than roses, and are much harder and stronger than them.

 I continued to revere that student who helped me and rubbed my head with respect. 

He was amazed at how I changed him over the days. 

He asked me why, and his good deeds filled my eyes with tears, and he became even more astonished.

 I thought that I had let my brother down, and that I was the cause of his death, so I told him: My clothes dried up after a while, but my eyes are still wet to this moment!