The Monster Is Gone: A Short Story
A little fiction for your Sunday
One of the more unexpected aspects of the fall of the Syrian regime is that it has changed the way that I imagined myself having children.
Something that once felt completely ill-advised for what I thought was a myriad of reasons—climate change! the economy! the rise of fascism!—suddenly no longer felt like such a preposterous idea. Suddenly, there was another world—an unknown one, yes—but one in which a hypothetical half Syrian child that I would have wouldn’t be born into a world where bullies won or revolutions failed.
Still, I wondered how I would tell them this story. I’m not the type to cover anything up or protect anyone from the truth—but is this cruel for a child? How would I tell them about the enormous amount of hatred and violence, the brutality that so many people experienced, and then the heroic tale of those who vanquished them? Now, these questions also joined the larger one of “to reproduce, or not to reproduce?”
The artwork on my story, The Monster Is Gone. Kevork Mourad (b. Syria 1970), "Immortal City," Damascus, 2017 (courtesy of the artist and Brandeis University).
So, perhaps it isn’t surprising that when The Markaz Review put out their call for submissions for their Love, War and Resistance episode, the story of Laila and Omar—and of course, Hadi—is what came out of me. It is the a fictional Syrian couple whose love story blossomed during the revolution, only for the two of them to end up on opposite sides of the planet from one another, thinking that they have moved on, only for the regime to fall—and wonder if they might find their way back to another. Its a labor of love, about both everyone that I know and no one in particular, dreamed up scenarios with factually-reported details in a way that only fiction can truly be.
It is also my first piece of published fiction, so I would love your thoughts and reactions. If you’re a parent, how do you talk about these topics with your children? Is there a magic age, a magic formula? I’d love to know your thoughts.
Xo,
Anna