Another letter to the Next Century Foundation from Dr Said in Gaza:

So, my phone suddenly went silent.
It decided to stop working — without warning, without a hint.

Just five minutes before “Mr. Jawwal” made his decision, I was writing a new piece.
I stopped for a moment, for some trivial reason, and when I came back to continue, the phone had declared civil disobedience — in its own way.

So… no phone now, Said?
And what does that even mean?

I don’t know.
But for the first time, I didn’t feel sad.

Before the war, something like this would have ruined my mood for at least two weeks.
But now… nothing.
I felt a strange ability to be numb — as if I had lost the motive for any action, any reaction.

I reminded myself that such an incident once could have thrown me into a depressive episode.
And maybe you’ll ask me now: “How do you feel then?”
I’d say: Normal.

Why normal?
Because my losses have grown too large for a phone to make a difference.

Three brothers, my mother, my uncle — my father-in-law — and his wife, whom I loved like my own mother.
Two homes, a library, great dreams, and the self I used to be before the war.
All of them gone.
Losses so vast that mourning a phone feels like grieving a pebble before a mountain of sorrow.

Sometimes I feel as though my heart itself is buried under the rubble —
if someone were to dissect it, they would find ash, dust, and traces of roads I once tried to run through to survive.
Each beat makes a faint sound — like a stone striking a fallen wall.

Is it numbness? Or just the habit of grief?
I don’t know…
All I know is that I’m not sad —
and yet, I’m deeply afraid of this state.

Dr. Said Mohammed Al-Kahlout
The Palestine Trauma Centre
Gaza, Palestine

Image by hosny salah from Pixabay