Imagine an Eight- or Nine-Year-Old Girl in a Cupboard
The Technology of Forgetting, Long-Range Catastrophes, and Pandora’s Mistake
I came to work.
I got busy.
Went out for a cigarette in front of the building.
People pass by in all colors—on bikes, in cars, on motorbikes, on foot.
People from all over the world are here.
I try to collect myself.
As usual during breaks, I open Instagram—and I see Suwayda Hospital. Destroyed. Riddled with bullets.
DanaDel has a Syrian friend—his classmate. A clever, sweet boy. I saw his mother once, rushing out of the school, phone in hand, frantic. Dressed in black. She looked like someone banging against the walls of a tiny basement in the heart of Suwayda. Watching her—her terrified, anxious face—made the entire city of justice and peace feel small and tight, like a cell under siege. Like the one I survived in: two years, inside a 2-by-2 concrete shelter.
A bit farther down the street, I saw more Syrians, also in black. It seemed they were coming back from somewhere. Suwayda is a special place. Or used to be. And suddenly I understood: Suwayda comes from the Arabic root s-w-d—meaning black. Its full name is al-Suwayda. In Arabic, al-Suwaydaʾ means “the little black one.” But it has another meaning, too. In ancient Greek and Islamic medicine, suwaydaʾ al-qalb refers to the innermost part of the heart—the seat of deep emotions, the psyche, and awareness. In the theory of the four humors, sawdāʾ (black bile) is associated with melancholy, sorrow, and profound thought. Almost all industrially produced foods in Europe and America are said to be, in some sense, “sawdā-inducing.” Politically, the same seems to be true—perhaps.
So Suwayda is a hidden, dark spot in the heart. A place where secrets, grief, or inner truths lie buried. Like that disabled girl in the Suwayda hospital.
An eight- or nine-year-old girl with disabilities. Hiding in a cupboard. Shot in the head. Bodies left decomposing around the hospital. Apparently, all parties involved committed atrocities. This criminality has become normalized—just like the grotesque list of 65,000 (or however many) victims in Gaza, from children aged four to six, to the elderly and disabled. DanaDel’s Syrian friend’s family had gone into hiding in a basement in Suwayda, with barely any internet connection. I’m talking about the days when the situation was at its worst.
And now, what am I supposed to do with this? What should I do for DanaDel’s friend? For that girl in the cupboard—who still doesn’t know that her parents have been killed?
Suwayda is a city in southern Syria. I know many Persian speakers have no idea where it is. And they don’t feel they need to know. Especially since its people speak Arabic—another reason not to care. After all the kindness they’ve extended to Persian-speaking Afghans!!, they have no more room left in their suwaydaʾ al-qalb for Arabs. But the more you know, the more you realize: Suwayda is real. A real place. On Earth. In our own time. Not so far from your lived memory. Worse yet, it has a real hospital. With a real cupboard. Where a real disabled girl tried to hide.
If you locate it on the map, you break the law of forgetting.
And by forgetting, I don’t mean sin. I mean a survival mechanism. A coping tool.
But why do we always have to be stretched so far? Why does everything carry us so painfully far away?
I’ve been to Syria—when I was still in my mother’s womb. We traveled as far as Quneitra. From there, through her eyes, I must’ve glimpsed the Golan Heights. Damascus, too. I once crossed Syria’s fertile soil by train—back when I had a different name, and Syria was caught in a different war. Now, the image of Suwayda Hospital links in my mind to Evin Prison—bombed by the very army that now kills hungry civilians in Gaza—under the grotesque excuse that it was “a symbol of oppression.” And yet, prisoners in Iran today are in even worse conditions than before. That bombing didn’t end oppression. It only changed its costume.
My mind leaps again, to the times I wasn’t born yet—when prisoners were marched up Evin’s hills and shot, but not while escaping. They made it look like escape, so they could shoot them with justification. Just like today, when they shoot starving people in Gaza.
Then I remember when I myself was a prisoner—and further away, people were being gunned down in the reed marshes of Khuzestan. And there was that time—me, Majid, and so many others—separated by more than a thousand kilometers, but still it felt like the eyes on the television were looking straight at me. Smiling at the foot of the gallows.
It all circles back to war. Back to the moments when I expected it all to end at any second. I used to think: maybe a nearby explosion is better than a distant one. At least it’s fast. Like the bombing in Tajrish Square. At least that death is immediate. Less suffering. Right? No time to analyze, to process what’s happening. By the time you flinch—it’s done.
Maybe that’s the root of it. When you pay attention to one life, one face—you sign up for a whole chain of interlocked griefs and buried memories. They soak into your skin, your nerves.
I remember staring at my prison yard’s concrete wall, as fat raindrops smashed down like missiles. And I thought: if I were that one dry, motionless spot on the wall—how many bombs would it take until one hit me directly and ended it? It’s strange. Thousands and thousands of drops had to fall before I realized—even in the worst-case scenario—not a single hair may be touched.
I remember they once said they wanted to wipe a whole country off the map—with missiles. What a foolish calculation. What an impossible mission. What a dangerous delusion.
And I stop.
But how do I return to my regular work now, with this downpour of grief on my head? My job is about building futures. It has no space for the chaos of this moment.
How do I pull myself together? My life, my daily work?
I have to finish the task. But I know—I can’t.
I know that if I let myself think even a little more about that disabled girl in the cupboard, I’ll have to stop working altogether. Decision paralysis. The work remains undone. Still, I must return to it.
I keep thinking: It’s not just missiles that have become long-range. The media, the wars, their victims—they’ve all gone long-range too.
So what now? What should I write? For whom? And what difference does it make now?
I know what happens after. But what happens now?
I wish we could go back to when a letter had to travel for days to reach its recipient. Now, the moment I hit “publish,” you get an email, or a notification. Or someone forwards it instantly. I don’t know your name. I don’t even know if you’re real. Or if you’re even my intended reader.
But in the end, I decide: maybe you feel something similar. Maybe not the same way—but does it really matter which end of catastrophe you’re standing on?
So I write. To drain a little of this trauma from my body and my mind—onto this virtual paper. So that you might read it. So that maybe you might write, too. And if not for me—for this imagined “us” that lives in your mind—for yourself.
Writing sharpens your thinking.
Writing soothes.
And more than soothing, words can heal.
Words are massive. Even the tiniest ones. Like atoms. And some writings, just through the energy they carry, can drag entire nations into war. Can destroy lives, pillage resources.
I have to get back to work.
Even though—I know—I won’t.
Maybe you’ll write.