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December 2021

The Swing of Collapse "Mazaj-Mood" by Ayham Jabr Like a shadow, this feeling of impending doom accompanies us. As though everything is in this slow, incomprehensible process of collapse. But maybe it's not so slow. It's at a strange speed-somewhere between the steady crumbling of an old house over time, and the sudden destruction of a building because of an earthquake. Everything is falling apart, but not too fast that it takes us by surprise, and not slow enough that we can do anything about it.  - Muzna, November 16, 2020   *** There is a common phrase reiterated at the end of every conversation: "It

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Non-Fiction, Thematic Essay
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معنى الاستمرار: عجزٌ أم غضبٌ أم إنكار؟ "Untitled" by Charbel Al Khoury What are we going to do in the years to come? I've never had this question be so central to life. It is everywhere.  - Livia, January 7, 2021   ***   The road to Bekaa, from Beirut, seems peaceful and beautiful, as if everything is alright. How does the sun rise as if nothing has happened?  The fields at the side of the roads look like they do every year. So do the trees, and the bright green grass. It almost feels like the other side of the story. A peaceful calm morning can hide the

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Non-Fiction, Thematic Essay
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Perpetual Limbo "Face it" by Pascale Ghazaly A friend recently told me that the choice between staying and leaving is the choice between hell and purgatory. It resonated. Hell is here; purgatory is elsewhere, somewhere in between, never fully belonging, alienated and in limbo.  I don't want to live here. Where the large pink clouds at sunset, setting behind the buildings on Sidani Street, give me flashbacks. Where I feel guilty because I turn away from a person begging (and have you noticed how the number of beggars has increased, how they keep getting younger and younger by the day?). Where I worry

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Non-Fiction, Thematic Essay
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محاولات للنجاة "34.5531° N, 18.0480° E 1,2,3,4" by Lara Atallah I hope that no matter what they do-no matter the trauma, the pain, the destruction-we can continue to imagine the possibilities. To dream. To bring to life new worlds, worlds we are deserving of. - Aida, January 26, 2021   ***   The more stressed I am, the more attentive my gaze becomes. I search for the tiniest manifestations of nature in my periphery. This is how I survive the daily wounds of this city. A red dragonfly on a car's license plate. A tiny lizard crawling the sidewall in the parking lot. A Palestine sunbird feeding off

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Non-Fiction, Thematic Essay
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Encountering the Pandemic and Its Noise "Red" by Pascale Ghazaly It's a complete lockdown again. I spend my days on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. I view stories, read tweets, scroll, repeat. Fascinating and depressing how we end up spending hours-more than half a day-on social media. On each platform, it feels as though I am wading through a crowd. I can sense the presence of everyone behind their screens scrolling too: a community of social media addicts.  A wave of virtual collective nostalgia to pre-pandemic times: posts about countries people visited; old photos from previous years; portraits of the people they miss; past

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Non-Fiction, Thematic Essay
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