#*emosi

[theturnofthephrases]

Letter from Gaza by Ghassan Kanafani, from Men in the Sun and Other Palestinian Story (translated by Hilary Kilpatrick)

My friend ... Never shall I forget Nadia's leg, amputated from the top of the thigh. No! Nor shall I forget the grief which had molded her face and merged into its traits forever. I went out of the hospital in Gaza that day, my hand clutched in silent derision on the two pounds I had brought with me to give Nadia. The blazing sun filled the streets with the color of blood. And Gaza was brand new, Mustafa! You and I never saw it like this. The stone piled up at the beginning of the Shajiya quarter where we lived had a meaning, and they seem to have been put there for no other reason but to explain it. This Gaza in which we had lived and with whose good people we had spent seven years of defeat was something new. It seemed to me just a beginning. I don't know why I thought it was just a beginning. I imagined that the main street that I walked along on the way back home was only the beginning of a long, long road leading to Safad. Everything in this Gaza throbbed with sadness, which was not confined to weeping. It was a challenge; more than that, it was something like the reclamation of the amputated leg!

[theturnofthephrases]

Letter from Gaza by Ghassan Kanafani, from Men in the Sun and Other Palestinian Story (translated by Hilary Kilpatrick)

I loved Nadia from habit, the same habit that made me love all that generation which had brought up on defeat and displacement that it had come to think that a happy life was a kind of social deviation.

[theturnofthephrases]

The Book of Queens by Joumana Haddad

Am I the only person on the face of this earth who's more frightened to live than to die? More terrified to be happy than to be miserable? I look at the cheerful face smiling at me, and I feel desperate and alone, like a still drop of water in a running river. How can these people be cheerful? Don't they know this is a scam? That they are trying to cheat the void? My mind orders me to feel god, but my heart won't obey. Somewhere between two, the nerves has been cut, communication blocked. This heart of mine is empty, no, it's full—of corpses. They are all crammed in it like worms, eating me up, slowly chewing my organs. Nibble, nibble, nibble, there goes my left lung. Is that why I can barely breathe? How much does a heart weight? An empty heart, a non-heart, without the load of love, passion, disappointment, anticipation, affection, ache, excitement, desire, regret, doubt, anger, resentment, warmth, ambition, faith, anxiety, suspicion? Without the load of all these we have lost along the way? An old woman I've never seen before comes and kisses me. I feel a strong urge to wipe the wet sensation of her lips off my cheeks. I feel like slitting my cheeks open with my long painted nails so that they bleed away this lie. Her kiss is a brown stain of my soul, telling me what a dirty fraud I am. She says, "I hope we'll see your children soon." I do not want any children. My wombs is crammed with corpses too. No place for a baby there. The worms would eat it bit by bit. I do not want any children. Not as long as children can die.

[theturnofthephrases]

Lili Putih karya Nayrouz Qarmout (diterjemahkan oleh Sasti Gotama), dari kumpulan cerpen The Sea Cloak.

"Baba, gadis-gadis di sekolah sedang membicarakan nyamuk raksasa yang meluncurkan roket dari langit." "Tidak, tidak, Sayang," jawabnya, "tak ada hal-hal semacam itu." Gadis itu mengamati wajah ayahnya. "Kalau begitu, suara bising apa itu?" "Itu nyamuk, tetapi tidak meluncurkan roket. Yakinlah. Langit hanya mengirimi kita hujan dan bunga, bukankah begitu?" "Ya, Baba. Dan serangga juga membantu bunga-bunga tumbuh. Ya, kan? Guruku memberi tahu kami tentang itu. Ia punya istilah khusus: drone. Itu bukan nyamuk sungguhan. Ukurannya jauh lebih besar—seperti pesawat, tapi enggak ada pilotnya. Drone itu menyemprotkan pestisida dari angkasa. Kalau aku besar nanti, aku mau jadi pengendali drone. Aku ingin menyemprot tanah lapang agar bebungaan dan pepohonan bisa tumbuh dengan cepat. Bayangkan memandang hamparan hijau itu di layar komputerku! Buzzzzz, buzzz—lihat, Baba! Aku jadi nyamuk."

[theturnofthephrases]

The History of a Play by Tennessee Williams

For one moment ... that there are people—millions!—to say things to. We come to each other, gradually, but with love. It is the short reach of my arms that hinders, not the length and multiplicity of theirs. With love and with honesty, the embrace is inevitable. 

[theturnofthephrases]

Immortality by Milan Kundera (translated by Peter Kussi)

From the moment she got married Agnes lost all the pleasure of solitude: at work she spent eight hours a day in one room with the colleagues; then she returned home, to a four-room apartment. Not a single one of the rooms was hers: there was a large living room, a bedroom for the parents, a room for Brigitte, and Paul’s small study. When she complained, Paul suggested that she consider the living room her own room and he promised her (with undoubted sincerity) that neither he nor Brigitte would disturb her there. But how could she feel at home in a room with a dining table and eight chairs used only for dinner guests?

[theturnofthephrases]

Sampar (The Plague) oleh Albert Camus (diterjemahkan oleh NH Dini)

Menurut Grand, kelanjutan cerita amat sederhana. Seperti semua orang, mereka kawin, mereka masih saling mencinta sedikit, mereka bekerja. Lalu mereka begitu keras bekerja sehingga lupa untuk mencinta … Karena terlalu lelah, dia berangsur-angsur kehilangan perhatian, menjadi masa bodoh, makin lama semakin pendiam dan tidak menimbulkan kesan bahwa Jeanne yang muda masih dicintai. Suami yang bekerja, kemiskinan, masa depan yang perlahan-lahan tertutup, kebisuan di waktu-waktu makan bersama. Di dunia semacam itu tidak ada tempat lagi bagi cinta. 

[theturnofthephrases]

Change The Rapper’s Golden Year by Hanif Abdurraqib-Willis, from They Can’t Kill Us Until They Kill Us

This, more than anything, is about how there is sometimes only one single clear and clean surface on which to dance, and sometimes it only fits you and no one else. This is about hope, sure, but not in the way that it is often packaged as an antithesis to that which is burning. It was an endless year that was sometimes hot and sometimes unbearable, and I sometimes threw open my windows and let music flood into the streets and I sometimes watched people glance up with a knowing smile, the way we do when a sermon calls us home, or calls us back to something better or away from somewhere worse.