Cleansed
The girl was frail. She stood amidst the falling droplets, her head tilted upwards, staring blankly and sadly at the sky. The girl welcomed the rain, embracing the drops that slapped onto her brown skin, trickling down from her head to her toes. When the girl mouthed the foreign words the man assumed that her brainwashing wasn't complete. Then the prisoner of the EAA Minority Residential School cocked her head towards the man and asked in perfect English, "Lt. Harris, was it?"
Language: the verbal embodiment of a culture; words its speakers invent to interpret their world.
What remains of Syria are scars of war written in blood and dirt. It's a territory fought over by the Big Three: the Euro-American, Asia-Pac, and African Alliances. The three super-alliances funded warlords within the "inferior" territories. This support enabled the warlords to continue fighting for control of what was formerly Syria, other Middle-Eastern countries, and Russia. Since the end of World War III, forty-two years ago in 2034, my homeland offered nothing but deprivation. Only my homeland's oil reserves had value. My language, Arabic, was stolen from me. I was brainwashed by the foreign eyes that gazed at me. Oblivious to outside matters, the Euro-Americans' society rejects minorities. Only those who tried to break me acknowledge my existence.
DAY 1:
We left home. My relatives and friends escaped with me in a boat with a rusting rotor and leaking waterproof adhesive. We feared for our survival.
DAY 7:
"My Lord! Let my entry be good, and likewise my exit be good. And grant me from You the authority to help me." Al Quran [Al-Isra: 17:80]
Eight of us perished at sea. When we neared the Euro-American Alliance coast in darkness, its underwater sensors detected us immediately. Sirens howled, lights sliced through the night sky, and bullets ricocheted off our boat. Everything turned red.
DAY 13:
Everything was hazy. Was I in a hospital? The lights hurt my eyes, and a cold, metallic band constricted my neck. When I tried to speak, hot needles of electricity shot into my throat.
DAY 15:
My eyes snapped open. I tried to stretch out my legs, but after extending them halfway, I touched a barrier. My hands were bound by a tight shackle. Dozens of bunk beds surrounded me. Children lying on the bunks moaned in pain. Sharp, foreign words pierced the air, and the room fell silent. I'm a prisoner.
DAY 16:
I awoke when icy water drenched me, and black-clad men dragged me off my soaked bed to a small room where they forced me onto a stool. I thrashed wildly, but I was shocked with electric currents, convulsing my body. Next, they shaved my hair while I cried: my prized, long brown hair. When I stood up and looked in the mirror, I gasped. My cheeks were hollow, my eyes sunken, and my lips cracked. Beginning to lose consciousness, I saw red, like the night my boat sank. Red overtook my vision. Then everything went black. "Fear not! Allah is always with you!" [The Quran 20:46]
DAY 18:
We children were called to a "mess hall," a silver room with a serving stand in the corner. We marched as a slow, silent mass with towering black-clad men prodding us. More than 300 children of all skin tones, ages fives to seventeen, sat on the floor submissively. As I surveyed the brownish sludge on my plate, a woman dressed in a blue and red military uniform entered and spoke. I couldn't understand. The woman said, "Your native words are prohibited here. If you rebel, you will be punished accordingly," The woman clicked a metal device, and a yellow-skinned boy no older than seven spasmed. Children nervously fingered their neck rings.
DAY 34:
A stinging blow whipped across my face. The mark of the class instructor's baton merged with other wounds lining my cheeks. "A15! If you fall asleep one more time, I'll shock you," the female instructor hissed. My class of forty all had code names like mine. How undignified it was to be labeled like livestock. All instructors were the same: pale skin and sharp features. It'd been less than a month since I started these brutal learning sessions, where children were shocked and beaten repeatedly for their inability to speak this alien language. I mouthed, "Call upon Me; I will answer your praye-" [The Quran 40:60] "Take her!" The instructor pointed at me. I tried to flee, but she pressed the metal device, and I subsequently collapsed and writhed between two desks. The other children cast their eyes down. Rough hands grabbed my arms and dragged me out of the classroom to more torture. Angrily, I gritted my teeth. My blood boiled.
DAY 76:
"Hello?" I whipped my hand angrily at the intruder. Someone squealed and jumped back, terrified. My eyes adjusted to the darkness, and I realized that it was B24, my senior. Her huddling figure made her look the contrary. "What do you want?" I asked alertly. "I'm sorry. I'm just. . .scared," B24 whimpered. I spoke softly, "You can sleep with me." "Really?" "Of course." We scrunched together on my bed. Our noses touched. We giggled. "My name is Madalyn. What's yours?" she asked. I hesitated, "Laila—Laila Abboud." "Arabic name." "You speak Arabic?!" I asked, perplexed. "Yes. Laila means 'born at night,' and Abboud means 'devout worshipper.' I noticed you silently praying during class." Madalyn explained that she was Egyptian and that her village had been destroyed in a skirmish between a rebel faction and the EAA. An EAA soldier found her buried in rubble, and that's how she got here. Knowing that even one person understood me was comforting. As Madalyn's breathing slowed, her eyes closed, silent tears ran down my scarred face. The warm feeling of hope burned bright inside me.
DAY 77:
All classes filed into the mess hall. I tried to look for Madalyn, but a firm hand gripped my arm. I turned around, and a man with a crisp, tailored uniform said, "I'm Lt. Harris. You've been Chosen this week." I'm going to be brainwashed and modified to become a dog of this totalitarian society.
I struggled, kicked… dragged outside… more guards come… rubbing…. Dirt… building… hissing doors… table... lasers around head… blurred vision… words… tears… shock… pain… lights… dimmer… shadows… darkening… fading… falling… don't want… forget… memories… boat… Alla… Qur… langu… Arab… skeleton… siren… won't… give up…. red…. death. My eyes snapped open to the rocking of an explosion. Blurry-eyed, I stumbled through the empty room. I felt my way to the double-doors, stepped through broken glass frame, and saw a vast sea of red. Bodies of escapees and guards were strewn haphazardly in the courtyard. I saw Madalyn's corpse, terror frozen on her face, limply holding a rifle. The children's necks all had burns where their neck rings had self-destructed. Tears threatened to burst. Allah must know. He must have a solution.
I recited the first prayer I'd ever memorized, but what I thought was lifelong fluency in my language was just an illusion:
"Fear no_! Sur_ly Alla_ _ with us." [ ]
I raised my head towards the sky as rain fell.
"Lt. Harris, was it?" A15 asked the stoic man while the downpour washed away the stench of death. Harris' uniform was torn from his scuffle with the escapees. "The lengths people go to defy the greater power. You're the only survivor of this class," Lt. Harris said casually. A15 sighed shakily, "These idiots." "Thirty-nine children are dead," "After staying here, death would be their blessing," her voice trembled with rage, "Your language is an irony. You have words like 'bilingual,' 'cultural identity,' and 'tolerance.' Why do these words exist when you belie them?" A15 proceeded to shriek hysterically, "All of you are scum! You forbid our treasured languages, you shatter our dignities, and you steal our… our cultural identities. Where do we belong? You expect us to prance gaily in your society?! How can I love this hellhole full of satanic beings?! My class, driven to desperation, tried to cling onto a sliver of hope, of freedom, and those innocent pleas were answered with death!" She paused, panting heavily. "What a godforsaken world," she whispered. Her drenched clothes stuck to her bony frame. A15 started, "My words, my people, all gone… however…." Clutching a scavenged knife, A15 lunged towards Lt. Harris. Her neck ring self-destructed, and she fell lifelessly onto the mud. Lt. Harris holstered his remote as guards arrived form the building. "Clean up the mess," Lt. Harris commanded, "and order me another suit."