Nate B Quill

I was attending a playback theater show, where audience members share personal stories and the actors reenact them, and an older woman shared a story of a war fought when she was just 9 years old. After the show, I found her and asked if she could retell her story to me. What follows is her story told to me from the other end of the bench. 

When I was 9 years old, Israel was carrying out غارات, or air raids, on Lebanon. All the households were asked to paint their windows and lights blue. This was to dim the lights so Israeli pilots couldn’t make out towns in the distance; even the car windows were painted blue. They’d tell our parents that there was going to be a bomb later in the day and when the planes were nearby, we’d hear one of 2 sirens:The first telling us to run to our bunkers, the second that  it was safe to go back up. 

When the خطر, or danger, siren rang, mom would scream for us to go to the shelter, in the basement. We were on the fifth floor. There was no elevator. We’d run down with our neighbors, and by the time we got there there would be another siren asking us to go back up to our homes. خطر. Home. خطر. Home. خطر. Home. Sometimes it’d happen once, sometimes more than once. It had a significant effect on us, because as kids we didn’t understand what was happening yet when we’d ask our parents they’d tell us “you’ll understand when you’re older”. Even after growing older we still ask “are we going to return to the blue windows?”. 

The blue window panes and lights are burned into my mind. 

I now understand that Israel is merciless. 

Back when I was nine it was a siren that still rings in my head to this day. In 2006 it was pamphlets dropped onto our balconies telling us to flee. Now it’s a ding coming from your phone.