I married a song. I did this secretly for about five years.
When I heard it, the sun was setting, and I was in a heavenly expanse of an old house with milk-colored walls. I knew from the first beat that it was her, the song of my life. I only hesitated a little, and because I had never heard before about a legal ruling or a moral reason that prevents a woman from marrying a song, I made up my mind and married her.
Every night I put two headphones in my ears, and Yas Khader sings to me “Han wa Ana Ahn.” I adjust the tremors of my soul to the tremors of the sad Iraqi melody, and I drink Yas’s voice through all my pores. The song cauterizes my heart, and it melts, pouring tears, rain drops, and dew beads, and then it snows. Have mercy on me gently, and I will give birth to butterflies, starlings, and daffodils.
I smile before I sleep, and many women smile with me. I may not know them, but I know that they are like me. A song may revive them, or a song may kill them.
Are you filming a play that you can see with the camera? By the Syrian playwright Muhammad Al-Attar, the story of a director filming a film in which she records the testimonies and experiences of young people detained in prisons months after the outbreak of the Syrian revolution, and she suffers a conflict between her convictions and her belonging to a family close to the regime.
