Safe
by Nathan Perrin
Khalil put the rest of his dinner plates in the dishwasher, started it, and made his way out the door to the backyard.
His neighbor’s son, Sam, was playing in the yard next to him.
Khalil waved and opened up a hatch on the ground.
“Where are you going?” asked Sam.
“Going to check a few things out,” said Khalil.
“What’s that?”
“It’s a bomb shelter,” he said.
“That’s neat!” Sam shouted. “I wonder if we have one.”
“Maybe.” Khalil laughed nervously. “Well, have a good night, friend.”
As he climbed the ladder down, he said a silent thankful prayer for his real estate agent. The only way Kahlil felt safe was if his new house had a shelter. After months of searching, he finally found his home.
When he moved in that summer, the first thing he did was go to the grocery store and buy canned goods to line the shelter’s shelves.
*
The bombs rattled the dust off the walls.
Khalil held tightly to his mother, only looking at her crucifix necklace.
With each loud explosion, he held her tighter.
Why was Iran bombing them? They did nothing. Saddam promised liberation to them too.
“Are we safe?” Khalil whispered.
“Yes,” his mother brushed his hair back. “We are safe.”
*
Khalil woke up, turned on the lantern, and made his way up the bunker’s ladder.
It was a bright fall morning. Clear skies. He smiled and made his way into the house to get ready for the day.
“Thank you, God, for this day,” he said.
It was another calm day in Paramus.
*
On his way to the office, Khalil stopped at his usual corner shop for a cup of coffee. He had quickly adopted the American sweet tooth, and now preferred his coffee “light and sweet.” Besides, no shop coffee ever tasted as good and filling as his mother’s. Only a small cup was needed of the syrupy coffee. Anything more, and Khalil’s heart pounded with caffeine and he sweated uncontrollably. Here, in the corner shop, he wove his way through the small crowd to the counter.
Everyone in the cafe was quiet and still, nearly all of them looking up at a TV. The guys behind the counter weren’t even taking orders.
“Excuse me,” Khalil smiled at the man behind the register.
“Aren’t you seeing what’s happening on the TV?” The man pointed above him.
Khalil looked up at a cable news station to see the Twin Towers up in smoke.
“My God,” someone whispered behind him.
He turned around and walked away, heart beating faster and faster with each step. It was happening here too.
*
Khalil covered his eyes in the corner of the shelter as his mother relieved herself across the room behind him.
“Are we going to be okay?” Khalil asked.
“Yes,” his mother said. “As long as we stay in here, we will be okay.”
Khalil sighed. “I can’t wait to get outside.”
“When you grow up, promise me you will change everything,” his mother said. “Promise me you’ll do good.”
“I promise,” Khalil smiled.
“You can open your eyes now.”
*
Khalil walked around a nearby park and tried to do the breathing exercises his trauma therapist taught him.
“It’ll be okay, it’ll be okay,” he whispered over and over to himself.
People around him were either catatonic or crying.
Just like in Iraq.
“It’ll be okay, it'll be okay…”
Nearby, a woman got on her knees and started cursing out loud.
Khalil’s steps quickened. Things like this weren’t supposed to happen again. America was supposed to be safe. That’s why he came. He made certain his whole life was safe, figured out. Memories of explosions, of quaking earth, faint air raid sirens hovering beneath quiet conversations, once fading and unobtrusive, crashed through his head and into the front of his brain. His eyes throbbed with remembered concussive blasts. He curled over his body to protect his vital organs from shrapnel. His breaths short, convulsive, brought no oxygen and his vision contracted. He knew the bombing sounds following him weren’t real, but his body didn’t know the difference.
“This isn’t Iraq, this isn’t Iraq, this isn’t Iraq…”
“Why?” cried a voice behind him.
Khalil rocked back and forth on the sidewalk in the fetal position.
He could hear footsteps around him walking in different directions.
In his mind’s eye, he was a child all over again, clinging dearly to his mother’s side.
“There's blood all over him!” Khalil shouted as he saw his neighbor try to wake up a dead man.
“Just keep walking!” his mother gripped him harder.
He lay down on the dusty, smoke-smelling New York sidewalk and cried, gripping for anything.
The sirens blared.
Khalil shouted out his mother’s name when a bright flash of light blinded him.
A thundering explosion pushed him across the street.
“Khalil!” his mother shouted.
He felt her hands on his face.
“Khalil!”
His vision cleared and he stared into her eyes.
“We need to get out!”
“We need to get out!” Khalil yelled.
His eyes darted back and forth to see he was still lying on the sidewalk.
“Count backwards from a hundred,” he breathed. “Just like you were taught.”
“One hundred, ninety-nine, thamaniya wa tis’un, sabʿa wa tis’un…”
Memories of bombs dropping next to his house repeated themselves in his head. The only comforting thought was his mother holding his face in her hands when his vision returned.
“Just get home, just get home, just get home…” he whispered in Arabic.
Somehow he found his car. Exactly where he parked it, but he couldn’t be sure how he got there from the sidewalk. He gripped the steering wheel and prayed for safety.
“We need to get out!”
*
“Why do people hate?” asked Khalil.
“Because people don’t understand that we need each other,” his mother answered.
They ate canned food next to the lantern light.
“We need each other?” Khalil raised an eyebrow.
“Yes, habibi,” she said lovingly. “The world is so used to looking at each other with hateful eyes that we forget we need each other to be safe. We need each other to be loved.”
“The world out there doesn’t seem so safe.” Khalil cuddled his mother.
“Promise me wherever you will go, you will never lose trust in people or humanity,” his mother whispered.
“I promise,” Khalil answered, hugging her tighter.
“Do you really?”
“Yeah.”
His mother kissed his forehead.
The bombs started falling again, but at least they were there holding each other.
*
Khalil flung open the shelter hatch, threw off his suit jacket, and started to climb down the ladder.
“Mr. Masih?” asked a familiar voice.
Khalil crawled back up and saw Sam.
“Yes?” he asked.
“My dad’s at the towers,” Sam sniffled.
Khalil climbed out. “Are you okay?”
Sam cleared his throat, “I’m scared.”
“Is your mom home?”
“I don't know where she is.”
As Khalil stood still, he realized that his body and memories were telling him not to help Sam. The world was just as cruel as he remembered. Even in the United States, buildings exploded for no reason.
“Do you want to come in with me?” asked Khalil.
“Yeah,” said Sam.
As they both climbed down, Khalil turned on the lights.
Sam sat down on one bed and picked up a nearby book.
Khalil closed the hatch door and sat down across from Sam.
He noticed Sam wearing a cross necklace.
“Are we safe here, Mr. Masih?” Sam cried. He hid his face from Khalil, even now on this day ashamed to show such distress.
“Yes,” Khalil replied. “We are safe.”
Nathan Perrin is an emerging writer and Anabaptist pastor in Chicagoland. He holds an MA in Quaker Studies from Barclay College, and is a doctoral student studying Christian Community Development at Northern Seminary.
His story, “Safe”, is inspired by his experiences with Community Peacemaker Teams and the local Assyrian community. His Master’s capstone also partially dealt with the ways Syrian Christians responded to war and conflict, so this story is a natural outpouring of that passion. His other work has been published in the Dillydoun Review, Bangalore Review, and Esoterica Magazine. He is also a screenwriter for an unannounced indie comedy series. For more information, visit nathanperrin.weebly.com.