How Easy is it to Take a Shower?
Tuesday, May 11, 2021
I want to take a shower. It’s 9pm. I’ve spent most of the day with my three children and also followed the news of the incessant airstrikes. Now I’m alone. My wife, Maram, has gone to her family house, just adjacent to ours. The kids are with her.
The drones never cease to buzz above everything: houses, trees, sand, trash cans, and air. The electricity went out earlier today. Instead of 8 hours we had it for only 5 (and later for only 2). The continued Israeli airstrikes have ripped some electrical cables out in the area. Off with the lights.
It was hot today. Not only because of the summer sun, but also because of the heat balls falling around us, on houses, on open lands, on trees, on streets, on bodies.
There is hot water and shampoo, thankfully. My clean clothes sit on the chair.
But a few things worry me. It’s dark and there’s no light in the bathroom. The only way I can see in the bathroom is by turning on my mobile phone’s flashlight. I don’t have much battery left, and the little I have of it I want to keep for an emergency. Maybe calling someone, or getting a call from someone? No one knows whether they or their relatives will be a statistic on the next breaking news update.
I walk by the kitchen. The drones’ buzzing sound never fails to penetrate whatever they fly over. I glimpse a group of very small candles that I never thought I would use again. They are from my son Mostafa’s first birthday last week.
I stick the colored candles on a plate, grab the lighter, and light them. I put the plate on a stool, which I place close to the bathroom’s door. I keep the door open to let some light in. I don’t care whether flies or a cockroach are watching me as I undress and shower, naked.
But wait!
What if the Israelis bomb our house? People will pull my corpse naked out of the rubble?
I think not. The Israelis usually drop a small rocket from a drone as a warning. I will have a minute to run. Or maybe the rocket will hit my library? Or the kids’ bedroom? But who knows, maybe they will choose to hit the bathroom. They might think no one is there. They don’t want to hurt anyone, right? Just a rocket, a small one. They only want to make us homeless again, but without hurting our bodies. Would they be very careful in choosing where the first rocket hits? Ok. I think I should keep my clothes on while having a shower. Or maybe not?
If I don’t decide quickly, the candles will go out. The drones continue to buzz. I step into the bathroom, run the water. It’s very hot. No one before me had a shower today.
The water gets hotter. I decide to undress, and I center myself under the shower. Should I put on shampoo? I want to be quick. Ok. Just use a little and rub it quickly. Just a minute.
The earth shakes. Some candles fall. The small bathroom window lets the yellow light of an explosion into my eyes, into my heart. It’s just about a mile away. I turn off the tap, then the big sound comes. We all learn that light is faster than sound, but in Gaza we know this more than any other people, especially at night, when the light is clearest during blackouts.
I put the robe on. I blow out the candles. I call my wife. The kids are asleep.
We arrived back in Gaza three months before this bombardment began. I, along with my wife and three children, spent a year and a half in the US. We never heard explosions or felt the earth shake. The only sound in the sky was either of a bird, an airplane, or thunder. In Gaza, there are no airplanes. There’s no airport. But in Gaza’s sky there are drones, F-16s, F-35s, helicopters, bombs falling, and also stones, concrete, and shrapnel soaring before hitting the earth, sometimes on our houses or on us if we’re walking in the street.
Yesterday was harsh for everyone, especially for the kids. My daughter, Yaffa, was so horrified by the heavy Israeli bombings, maybe more than other kids. After one explosion, Yaffa didn’t forget her simple English. She cried, “Daddy. It’s a bomb. I’m scared.” Another explosion followed. “Daddy. I want to hide.” My 5-year-old son, Yazzan, jumped and brought a blanket to cover his traumatized sister.
Eventually, they slept. For me, the only sounds I could hear were the drones, the ambulances, the bombings, and the radio.
I don’t sleep until it’s six in the morning. It gets quieter in the early morning. But the drones don’t sleep. Now, I have to stuff some cotton in my ears and close the windows, despite my need for fresh air.
Mosab Abu Toha is a Palestinian poet, fiction writer, and essayist from Gaza. He is the founder of the Edward Said Public Library, and in 2019-2020 was a visiting poet and scholar at Harvard University. He gave talks and poetry readings at the University of Pennsylvania, Temple University, the University of Arizona (w/ Noam Chomsky), and the American Library Association conference. His work has appeared in Poetry, The Nation, Solstice, Arrowsmith, Progressive Librarian Guild, among others. Mosab is the author of Things You May Find Hidden in My Ear: Poems from Gaza, forthcoming from City Lights Books in April 2022.