I Died Many Times Before...

I Died Many Times Before...

I Died many Times Before…

First time I remember, I was still a toddler
sitting in the morning sun, on the concrete floor.
My grandparents’ courtyard in Salamiyeh.
I watched, fascinated, as the massive snake
made its way from the roof
down the wall in front of me.
I held a long stick in my hand, tapped
the giant head as it slithered closer.

Second time, a year or so older, also in Salamiyeh.
It struck on a starry summer night.
I was playing barefooted on the patio.
Mother came running to my screams.
Sobbing, I told her a big butterfly bit my foot.
I pointed to where it ran off, watched
as she grabbed a straw broom, killed
the venomous desert scorpion with repeated blows.
I vividly recall her rushing around with one shoe on,
the other missing, laying me in a stroller,
running down darkened streets to the emergency clinic.

I also died at age five, along with my mother and sister.
It happened on the two-lane Hama-Homs highway.
Mother unintentionally turned the steering wheel
as she twisted her body to chide us
for backseat bickering. No guardrails.
Nothing but protruding rocks all the way
down the steep drop-off.

My first summer in college, I died in New York City.
Muggy night, uptown Manhattan, a block away from Broadway
in front of the big Cathedral. I had my arms up,
as the man who had just asked for a light
pressed the tip of his knife into my ribs.

Years later, on a misty morning on Texas Highway 87,
I fell asleep at the wheel.
I had worked through the night in Victoria,
and was looking ahead to my bed in San Antonio.
My Chevy Blazer slowly drifted left
into the path of the oncoming truck.

Those worlds
continue without me.
My tombstones there
mark ends of times I knew.

In this one,

grandmother Um Sami suddenly appeared.
Rounded boulder hoisted high. Arms fully extended.
How she lifted it? How she took dead aim, and launched it
smashing the serpent’s head?
I do not know.

I was still conscious.
I do remember clearly
the terrified look on my mother’s face.
How her voice trembled as she pleaded
with the nurse to be careful. She was afraid
the syringe’s needle was going to puncture through
my tiny toe.

Mother slammed the brakes as she forcefully corrected.
Car came to a screaming, precarious halt
in a cloud of swirling dust.
We stayed parked at the side of the road for a long time.
Her hands shaking, she gave us grapes,
while she collected her frazzled self.
She swore never to drive again.
Never did.

“Let the creep go”, the second robber,
who had just cleaned my pockets with swift efficiency,
told the one holding my life at the tip of his knife.
They took pity on me when I told them
there was nothing in my wallet.
They slipped it back. Walked off.
It took my rage weeks to subside.

I could see the whites of the wide-open eyes
of the truck driver, as I twitched awake!
He was already moving to his left
to avoid hitting me. But my reflex was to jerk the wheel
to my right to get back into my lane.
I also stomped the brakes.
We came within a hair of a head-on collision,
as he swerved back into his lane.
That was when time switched
to slow motion…
Me sitting still.
Blazer skidding sideways
on the wet grass
along the shoulder.
Dull-black asphalt road passing
in front of me.
No sound.
Finally,
everything
coming to absolute
rest.

In this one

an invisible hand
still cradles
my bones.

© Assef Al-Jundi

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