[منى هلال]

2

One day, I was watching TV with my sister Soha in the living room. My stepmother was breastfeeding my baby brother Sameh. My sister Hoda was playing with her doll, which her uncle Saeed had given her for her birthday the day before last. Soha and I were watching a TV presenter talking to a little girl who had red satin ribbons in her hair and was wearing a beautiful dress with lots of colours and lovely flowers. I was so entranced by the scene that I thought I could smell the scent of the flowers coming through the screen and into our small living room. Oh, how I wished I had a dress like that! I felt a teardrop about to fall on my cheek which burned by the agony in my heart, but I managed to hold it between my eyelids. I could see from the corner of my eye how my stepmother was looking at me in a very strange way. A moment of silence passed which felt like ages. My stepmother asked me to turn the TV off and go to my room with Soha to help her with her lessons. Her excuse was that I was older than Soha and was ahead of her in the school by one year. I obeyed; catching a falling teardrop in the palm of my hand as I silently got up and walked to my room. I waited for Soha for a long time, but she never came. I heard the sounds coming back from the TV, louder and louder. The girl with the colourful dress was singing a song that made my tears pour hot and fast. I couldn’t hold them back; they flowed unchecked in turbulent sadness and pain. They ran thick and fast and I could taste their saltiness in my mouth; they burned the cracks on my lips and ignited the agony of my soul. It was then that I decided to write my memoirs in my diary the same way my friend Tala did.0