I watch from behind a grimy water pump. For days, I have been watching, never daring to go beyond. The air smells like sweat and hangs heavy over the heads in the alley. 

Brother had my water today, my tongue is dry. My elbows have dust on them. On nights I cannot sleep, I peel the dry skin off of them, exposing the pink beneath. It looks like the edge of a cut watermelon, faint lines of red bleeding into the pinkness. I like watermelons.

Most mornings I bathe and put myself out to dry among the faded yellow sheets on the clothesline. No one can see me there. The hot wind billows through the cloth, it balloons around me. The sun dances on my face and I imagine it dancing on our roof back home. I imagine the sun knocking on the windows of our smiling neighbours, glittering over our covered heads as we bow in prayer. 

Does the sun visit the dead?

Mother always cried whenever she saw someone die. I thought I should cry too but I never did. I just looked, and after that, I ran.

I cried for three days when Hasan's cat died. That was my first experience with death. But the dead people on the streets looked like the dolls I used to play with, when I put them to sleep. They looked mangled but I imagined they were sleeping. I imagined they were dolls, and I imagined I didn't see Mother cry, and I didn't cry. Because if it took me three days to cry for the cat, there weren't enough tears in me for the hundred and five people I saw.

Mother has been crying more at night. She acts like she is sleeping but I can see her. I think she's scared we may die too. But we're good at escaping, we've escaped everytime so far. 

There is an open drain beside our house. Earlier my brothers and Hasan would play in the narrow lane. Their ball would fall into the dirty water nearly every day. My brothers always sent me to fish it out. Mother would slap me when she saw the black stains on my pants. She could slap hard and often. But her slaps only hurt for a little bit, and it was worth it to watch the older boys play ball. They said I could play when I was older.

I am older now but no one plays anymore. 

Till yesterday, only my youngest brother was home, the rest went off to fight. He is small and his leg is bent so he never plays. He can barely walk. Father said in the big hospitals they operate on the leg to fix it, but we don't have enough money. We never seem to have enough money. Mother cries about that too. She cries a lot. 

She even cried yesterday when my brothers came back. They will stay for a while. They don't look the same, older, with red eyes and bigger beards. But they still carried me on top of their shoulders and I was too happy to think about anything else. I smiled and smiled. 

They said they would play ball tomorrow. Father said he would, too. It has been so very long. From ball games every day to once in a blue moon. I smiled some more. For once, Father didn't mention money at the dinner table.

We used to have money. Apparently, even land. But we lost all of it when we fled the country. Father still keeps the key to our old home on the kitchen shelf. He says we will go back one day.

Right now, an orange peel lies flat by the drain. Soon it will flow in. The black water flows down constantly, into the shadows. Hasan is familiar with shadows, he can see well in the dark. He is a tall boy, but he never grew up. Mother says that. Mother finds it odd that he plays hide and seek with me. I think he plays because he knows I miss my brothers. I heard he wanted to go with them but he was told by the big men that he's too weak to fight. 

Hasan is weak because he is sick. He has always been. His mother was told that he would only live five years but he is twenty now. He says he's cursed to live forever as a burden. I don't understand what he means. He says odd things sometimes. Hasan coughs a lot when we play. But he can run fast and he runs with us when we move. He can outrun almost everyone I –

I emerge from my hiding spot. I must fish the ball out of the drain.