Memories

by Edie Behr

It's the height of summer and we're queuing outside a cafe on the beach. Ella is first to bring it up. "Why won't you come in, Yara? It's not cold and the tide's so low. Aren't you boiling?" I blink, frowning. How can they worship this cruel sun? Or maybe I'm the strange one, with my olive skin. And my hijab. Ella runs off, leaving me to stand awkwardly in line with her mother. Every few seconds, she looks round to see that I haven't run off. Mother's orders. I stare around idly at the bodies around me, basking on the stones: pale and waxy. I shudder, a sudden image of the past flooding through my head. I should never have come. I knew it would end up like this: my refusing to even look at the water, memories all coming back to me. Not even a happy occasion such as this could stop them. The shrieking of the gulls, almost a cry for mercy. And the waves, a churning mass.

The way they coil around each other, a snake and its innocent prey. They come in and out, but never really go away. It makes me uncomfortable. I don't like anything eternal. It doesn't make sense! Why can something as simple as waves on a beach be everlasting when something so complex like happiness seems so fragile? Actually, I know one feeling that can be truly eternal: fear. There you go, I said it. The word that sums me up. Ask most people and they'll say that the thing that makes them themselves is how caring and kind they are. And maybe they are, I don't know. But fear makes me who I am.

I wasn't always fearful; my mother used to tell me that I was always her brave little water girl (that's what my name means in English). But after that day, the day my life turned upside-down, it has been different. I have forgotten the Yara I used to be: wilful and ambitious. I am different now. My mind is brought back to the present, and Ella is back and she is pulling me towards the beach. I pull away but her grip is too strong. My head is crammed full with thoughts in just a few seconds. My ears are screaming, and my brain whirring in fright. It's all too much!

The gulls screaming, the crashing of the waves over my head. The sun, also screaming, but of thirst and agony - and family. The worst part of all: I will never be able to un-see the horrors of what I saw in Syria. The war, bodies in a row, then the boat. The writhing waves tossing it effortlessly; the struggle for breath as you are chucked mercilessly into the foaming water; the fight to keep hold of your senses, to stay conscious, then the rescue and the beach. My friends will never understand what I've been through. I don't know if I will either.