Memories of Gulf war

Well it was the night before school re-opened, I had given my first exam in arabic and wud flunk for sure. I had to be a role model to my sis and bro so i cudn't flunk! I had no options, so I prayed that the school wud never re-open. Maybe god heard my prayers! Sumwhr around midnight dad got a call from his friend in the security dept saying that the Iraqi's had invaded Kuwait. I never knew that meant loss of job ,problems and overnight work to mom who was a nurse. I was happy thinking about the holidays ahead.Noone stepped out of house for days ;the sky at night looked like firecrackers bursting ,little did we know that they were alarms and shells ! Mom had the advantage of getting ration if she went in uniform and i boasted to my friends whose mom's never worked ,that i had a smart mommy. Dad and friends played cards, discussed about plans to escape to India and I thought they were mad! Can't parents have holidays? Maybe parents dont know to enjoy!Shop keepers started selling shops to return to their country, the shop below our flat sold 150 ice creams for very cheap price and then it was ice cream all the time and this I thought was "heaven"! . Oh god ! I asked to close school ,now aren't you giving me a lot? We played all the day , Dad and mom gave away all the toys they had hidden believing we would spoil them as if they were gadgets unfit to use! Every time they would say" you can play with those when u grow up" now they gave it all together, its after a week that we found they were selling it to Iraqi's and collecting money to go back to India.We cried when that dumb Arab put our toys in a sack."This man stinks! " my baby brother told ,he was hardly three and could not pronounce dirty so he said " Arabi icheechee " . We hushed him and said we could play hide and seek so he wont see them taking our toys away.The next day while watching tv (though it had news and cartoons only) another man disconnected and took it too.Now only story books were left which i had hid in my school bag. I still have them after all these years! We three( me, my sis and bro ) thought maybe we wont study again like the story "Hansel and Gretel ",we will live in woods and collect twigs my sis who never read that story silently agreed . I was the leader and told them in the forest you dont get ice cream coz there's no fridge . My brother was worried he asked, "wat about butter?" i said, "bread , butter yes but there are many witches there too, who eat cute boys .He said," that's ok i will wear your frock!! " and we laughed at that not knowing how many were killed, raped and slaughtered outside.That's my memoirs of The gulf war.

by bhuji