Survival is an Act of Defiance
I watch them. Each step they take feels like defiance, a rebellion against despair itself.
From Dr. Ezzideen:
The air is thick with the weight of their return, a silence louder than any explosion, heavier than the smoke that once smothered their streets. These people—these fractured, resilient souls—are returning, though it’s unclear what they are returning to. A home that is no longer a home, a land that carries the bones of their loved ones and the scars of their suffering.
I watch them. Each step they take feels like defiance, a rebellion against despair itself. But their faces—oh, their faces—are carved by the chisel of war. Eyes that once danced with light now reflect only shadows. Shoulders that once carried nothing heavier than a child now bear the invisible burden of everything they’ve lost.
And yet, there’s something else in their walk, something maddening, inexplicable. Not hope, not yet. But maybe the ghost of it. A kind of stubbornness, as if daring the world to break them further.
I feel my tears rising, hot and unrelenting, spilling down my face like rivers bursting their banks. They are not just my tears—they belong to every scream left unheard, every life taken too soon, every home reduced to rubble. They carry sorrow so deep it feels like it might split me in two. But amidst the grief, I feel something shameful, something dangerous: joy. Not for the war, not for the loss, but for their sheer will to live. How can they laugh in whispers? How can children play among the ruins?
This war has taken everything from them, and yet it cannot take this—their ability to create a life where none should exist. I am furious at the contradiction, furious at the world that forces them to endure it.
Do they not deserve more? Do they not deserve peace without fear, love without the shadow of loss, days without the stench of death lingering in the wind?
As I stand here, I understand that survival is not just an act of instinct—it is an act of defiance, a war waged against the cruelty of fate itself. And though my tears fall, though my heart breaks for them, I cannot help but believe that these people—this broken, beautiful humanity—will rise again. Not because the world is just, but because they refuse to let it remain unjust.
They return now to a place that is more graveyard than home, but their steps whisper something stronger than any bomb, louder than any war. They are saying: We are still here. And that, somehow, is enough to shatter me.
