The Rule of Squares

Ranya didn't want to get up. Today wasn't going to be any different than the last three or so months. Her brother Amin was the only one left. Amin, too young at fourteen for the local militia but not too young for Daesh. Daesh scared Ranya terribly. She had heard stories about them that gave her nightmares. Amin had stolen an AK and ammo off a dead fighter. He fired it several times and felt confident he could fire it again. He displayed it when anyone came by their damaged space in the Elghotni neighborhood in Aleppo. Their space was essentially the abandoned shop stall their uncle used to operate a fruit stand out of until the area was destroyed about two years ago. Food was difficult to find. But they were still alive and that meant they had been successful enough finding something to survive on. She had lost fifteen kilos in the last two years. Amin at least ten kilos. He looked skinny and scary enough with his gun that nobody thought he was worth messing with in Ranya and Amin's destroyed stall. They still had belongings in their flat upstairs but power and water and working dwv was long gone. Windows long since busted out. At least the street level stall gathered more sunlight. Ranya certainly would have been desired by any number of fighters in the area. But the few locals that were still alive respected her family and her honor. Those that hadn't known her family hadn't yet gotten around to taking out Amin and his gun. Ranya, three years older than Amin, was angry that he was possessive about the gun and wouldn't allow her to operate it. He was so chauvinist and stupid about that. What if he was killed? She needed to know how to operate it to survive in a war zone. But Ranya hated guns. Everything about them. The gun that killed her mother. The gun that may have killed her father. He was never heard from again so they didn't know what got him. Could have been a bomb. Probably a bomb. Amin had gone out with another boy and found bread. That was probably going to be it for food today. They had brought it back and saved her some. If she didn't get up then the bread wouldn't be there forever. She unceremoniously grabbed a large chunk of bread and started on it hard. The heat of the day had already started to come in and it was going to be another stifling hot day. Sweaty. Gross. Tiring. No power. Ranya stared blankly at the blankets hanging in the stall that shielded her from view so didn't get raped while Amin was away. She knew of other girls who had ended their own lives. She thought about it too often. Life had been a dark hole for her for too long. No hope. The neighborhood was destroyed. Attempting to leave was hopeless. No way out. Others had streamed out of the motherland to Europe or refugee camps. Those people didn't live in Elghotni. Trapped. No way out. "Don't you hear?" Amin asked her flippantly as he bounded back into their space with a carton of goat's milk that was nearly spoiled. Ranya wasn't listening for anything. And she didn't ask for the goat's milk, a luxury item, as she lunged for it rudely. Amin pulled it out of reach, spilling part of the contents on the cracked concrete floor. "Your stupidity exceeds your scary looks, retarded filth!" Amin screamed at Ranya. He tilted the AK across his back at her, gesturing that he was ready to make another war casualty out of her. Her impulsive foolishness startled him. "Is goat's milk free? I am your protector and you are this terrible to me???" She stared blankly, focusing on nothing. Why keep on living? "Don't you hear?" Amin grinned a little as he repeated his question. Ranya moved her stare to him. She said nothing. She felt so dirty and hopeless. Maybe because she was very dirty and very hopeless and bloody regularly. And she heard nothing other than truck noise. "The guns are silent." Amin looked at her directly now. So what? They won't be for long. And neither will the government planes. Planes that send missiles. Nothing more to bomb in their neighborhood. But bombs far away still shook her to the core. Bomb blasts had knocked out most of her hearing in one ear and part of her hearing in the other. She felt more isolated than ever. She started sobbing. She kept on. Amin had heard it so many times he ignored her. He went to the corner to pee. She kept on crying. Crying with shaking now. Utter despair for the umpteenth time so why should she keep on living? Amin went over to her and put his arms around her shoulders. "Ranya, sister, there is talk of hudna." That started her up. She pushed him away and she picked up a candle cup and threw it out into the alley. "I am tired of hearing that word. It is only to tease us and torment us endlessly. Every time they say hudna then it only returns with bombs and killing." The look on her face was complete despair and hopelessness. Her voice was loud- she was almost totally deaf. Amin knew he couldn't counter her on this. It was all true. The day drug on. Just another day in hopelessness? Maybe. But she listened carefully with what little hearing she had. No gunfire.