TRAFFIC LIGHT
I saw the green as the traffic light switched from red which meant death to yellow which meant hope to green which meant life.
This piece grew out of an interview with a woman named Maja. Maja glowed with her positive energy and spirit and amazed me with her story. She worked for an American company in Iraq and was tracked down and hunted for her affiliation with an international organization. Maja had to leave immediately for she feared the death of her family members and herself if she did not flee. She escaped to the Netherlands and has fond memories of living there, although she misses home every day. The photograph accompanying this monologue is of an object that was given to her as a child by her grandfather. She has always carried it with her on her journey.
I saw an empty highway
I felt the long drive
from family to work and work back to my home
I heard the faint music coming from the car radio
My keys shook gently
Back and forth
Back and forth
Iraq. 2003.
I felt the headscarf I never chose to wear clasped tightly to my hair
around my neck
falling across my small shoulders.
I saw a man appear
On my left
and then another
To my right.
The one on the left smiled and raised a hand
as if to greet me
and i looked over to the one on my right
who greeted me not with a friendly gesture
but with a gun.
Pointed towards me
I heard my heart in my ears and my voice cry out as if separate from my body
I saw the green as the traffic light switched from red which meant death to yellow which meant hope to green which meant life.
My car sped and the only noise i could hear would be the gunshots and the screeching of tires and the only sight I saw was the
long, empty highway ahead of me.
I drove for hours and hours, knowing they would follow me.
I worked for an International organization and foreigners meant death and torture and suffering to the people i knew.
My thoughts went up hills and down ravines and everywhere in between as I began to envision my life and it’s end and what that meant for me and why is this happening? why me? why not me? what will become of my family?
I finally decided that I needed to return home to my loving family, to ensure that they would live to see tomorrow
I had hope that they would not go to my home
would not lay a finger on my mother or a bullet in the chest of my father
and that they did not do.
untouched were the humans in my house
but my dog, my dog was shot.
and a shiver trickled down my spine and tears threatened to erupt as I saw what was placed near my dog.
a note,
left for me from the terrorists.
it said, “Anyone of you will be next.”
anyone.
me my mother my father my sisters and brothers and anyone.
I need to leave
I must leave right now, i thought.
I threw clothes across the rooms and grabbed some bread and ran out of my front door
leaving behind the life i worked so hard for.
There was a time that I would risk my life for my job. But I could no longer do that, I could no longer put my family in danger.
We must all live to see the sun rise and if I had to leave the country I love so much to experience the morning, well then that I must do.
I moved to Holland.
To a refugee camp.
It amazed me how I went from a life of big houses, nice cars, feasts at dinner, my own bed
to a life of awful toilets where the water spilled out and the showers never truly made you feel clean and the children cried all day and all night and the adults cried all day and all night and i slept with 20 strangers.
Nevertheless, these 20 strangers all had different stories and different lives and our unity made up for my loss and my loneliness. I may have arrived alone, but I now felt as if I could never be alone.
I am forever grateful to the people of Holland, who will always be in my heart. I may not speak with my family and I may have been forced from the life I lived but I am making a new family everywhere I go, new memories, new experiences.
The first two years after I left were the hardest. I asked myself often, what next? what else must I carry on my shoulders?
But I have come to realize that when I look at my past, I can still feel joy.
I am able to stand up and breathe the air and say I did it! I made it! So whatever you have been through in your past, please remember that there is happiness and gratitude to be found in all the little corners of this journey we call life.
Life is worth it.
And I live.