Illustration by Jaimee Lee Haddad
My balcony looks north, away from the bombings. But my ears are trained south. I usually stop listening to music when the sun starts to go down because that’s when — we joke — “their shift starts.”I’m lucky that it’s just the sounds. I suffer from my upstairs neighbor putting something heavy down, and from the garbage truck lifting dumpsters and the sound they make when they’re clumsily placed back on the ground. I suffer from no sleep, since what could be mistaken for thunder keeps me tensed under the covers. I suffer from the intrusive buzz of the drone watching me water my plants. Twice, when they used 2,000-pound bombs, and dozens of them at once, I thought I was going to die. Each time, I ran toward the stairs, enough adrenaline pumping through my veins to get me all the way to the mountains. That’s my plan.I suffer from the sounds,...
My balcony looks north, away from the bombings. But my ears are trained south. I usually stop listening to music when the sun starts to go down because that’s when — we joke — “their shift starts.”I’m lucky that it’s just the sounds. I suffer from my upstairs neighbor putting something heavy down, and from the garbage truck lifting dumpsters and the sound they make when they’re clumsily placed back on the ground. I suffer from no sleep, since what could be mistaken for thunder keeps me tensed under the covers. I suffer from the intrusive buzz of the drone watching me water my plants. Twice, when they used 2,000-pound bombs, and dozens of them at once, I thought I was going to die. Each time, I ran toward the stairs, enough adrenaline pumping through my veins to get me all the way to the mountains. That’s my plan.I...