My Voice is Slaughtered

yemenat

Ahmed Saif Hashed

When I became a child capable of discernment, able to grasp the rudiments of life and death, and the difference between staying and leaving, I witnessed what burdens the soul and weighs heavily on memory. More than fifty years have passed, yet those memories remain unyielding and impossible to forget.

I watched them slaughter a rabbit, and its piercing scream still erupts in my memory with pain, every time I recall it on some occasion or when something today reminds me of it. I never imagined I would witness so many wars, disasters, and vast tragedies in my lifetime.

I remember its agonizing scream just before the slaughter, as if a child had possessed it, crying out in a protest that exploded from its shocked voice. I recall the knife placed against its gasping throat, a refusal and protest against its execution without guilt, save for the desire of someone who craved its flesh, while its heartbeats reached a crescendo, and its breaths resembled those of a long-distance runner.

As the act of slaughter commenced, I remember the heavy hand clamping down on its mouth, suffocating its voice and stifling its breaths, while some of its stunned cries scattered like sparks from between the fingers pressing against its mouth, as if it were a cry of existential protest against a terrifying, grotesque reality.

* * *

I have always remembered this painful scene vividly, as if it occurred today, comparing it to other painful scenes that have passed or continue to unfold.

I recall it clearly as I witness the strangling of any voice that wishes to express its pains or the pains of others, or that seeks to protest against the oppression weighing heavily on weary shoulders, bleeding hearts, and the oppressed under authority, along