{"id":8163,"date":"2025-02-18T11:29:18","date_gmt":"2025-02-18T11:29:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sum.malmostudenter.se\/?p=8163"},"modified":"2025-02-18T13:00:24","modified_gmt":"2025-02-18T13:00:24","slug":"remember-the-river-euphrates","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sum.malmostudenter.se\/index.php\/2025\/02\/18\/remember-the-river-euphrates\/","title":{"rendered":"Remember the River Euphrates?"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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Illustration: Amr Abbas<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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Remember the River Euphrates?<\/h2>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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By: Sara Al Husaini<\/strong><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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18\/02\/2025<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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“Remember the River Euphrates?” by Sara Al Husaini is the 1st place winner of the Nostalgia Short Story Competition, organised by SUM and C\u00e1lice Magazine.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

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There was a time when the light shone bright; when you smiled in a manner that brought the Sumerian inside you out, the great curls like the Hanging Gardens of Babylon that took wing with the wind. We are not near the river Tigris, the great Euphrates\u2014we lost it, our country. I lost it, spilled it like milk.<\/p>


No one likes opinionated women, or so they tell me. We all have our reasons, right? We had to go and leave it all behind.<\/p>


We walk near the Malm\u00f6 canal\u2014not a river, nor our country, but home, kind of. Your hair flows freely, the curls gone with the wind like little black clouds, so visible against the blue sky, and dark eyes that capture it all. \u201cThis is nice,\u201d you say.
Not Euphrates, but the Malm\u00f6 canal.<\/p>


Now I’m not with you, but alone. I look at the dark canal water, the neverending stream of people strolling with their dogs, and the great trees along the path. Someone has attached a white heart to one of these trees; it says “k\u00e4rlek till alla” in red.
Sister, do you remember when we walked this same path carved by the very same canal? You asked me that day, \u201cRemember the glittering river Euphrates? Remember the dark red tea we had?\u201d
\u201cOf course! I still taste the cardamom in the tea,\u201d I answered. I feel the clenching heat in my neck, the palm trees carved in my corneas, your laughter, the fine sand creeping through my open-toe sandals. But, little sister, now I am here. This is Sweden\u2014not my home, but my future.<\/p>


Sometimes, this means walking alone, crying alone, and making only one cup of tea.
Sometimes, I play pretend, close my eyes, open them up again, and see the canal turning into the river Euphrates. Swedish begins to sound like Arabic, our southern dialect, but the Malm\u00f6 sun is shy; it hides behind the clouds, her rays awfully kind. My toes are wrapped in warm socks, inside my black sneakers. I realize that imagination is defeated by memory; my senses are in Iraq, but I am here\u2014not home, but kind of.<\/p>


The photographs hurt\u2014you with our smiling parents far away, the rivers of our ancestors. But I manage, away from these thoughts and the canal. I order a latte in Dj\u00e4knegatan, smile like Mom and Dad, say “tack” to the barista, and sit down.
The sounds fill the caf\u00e9\u2014none of them mine, none of them yours. My phone lights up; you have sent me a message:
Hi! How\u2019s it going, all good?
All is good.
I send you a picture of the latte. I hope you’ll believe I’m doing fine, that I didn’t cry last night. I miss you, but not enough to tell you, not enough to worry you.
Nice, you say, and heart my picture.
You went back, your curls hidden from the sun, the sky, and the eyes. I understand, but I can’t stop missing you.
I wish I was there, I type…and erase.
You got a heart from me, little sister.
There’s no need for more, not now\u2014no theaters, no masks, just distance and pasts.
This is Sweden; I’m home now\u2014sort of.<\/p>

\u00a0<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“Remember the River Euphrates?” by Sara Al Husaini is the 1st place winner of the Nostalgia Short Story Competition, organised by SUM and C\u00e1lice Magazine.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":8158,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[328],"tags":[339,294,338,291,337,23],"class_list":["post-8163","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-short-story-competition","tag-calice","tag-creative-writing","tag-nostalgia","tag-short-story","tag-short-story-competition","tag-sum","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sum.malmostudenter.se\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8163","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sum.malmostudenter.se\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sum.malmostudenter.se\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sum.malmostudenter.se\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sum.malmostudenter.se\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8163"}],"version-history":[{"count":17,"href":"https:\/\/sum.malmostudenter.se\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8163\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8205,"href":"https:\/\/sum.malmostudenter.se\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8163\/revisions\/8205"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sum.malmostudenter.se\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8158"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sum.malmostudenter.se\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8163"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sum.malmostudenter.se\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8163"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sum.malmostudenter.se\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8163"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}