Nick Paleologos

Those who walk the earth…

-a short, fiction storyby Nick Paleologos*

‘Stay home’ a banner on the main square reads. Nadir smirked as he tears down the soaked piece of paper, holding a plastic bag full of goods, given to him and his family.

As he walks up the meandering road to the camp, he softly sings a lullaby his grandmother taught him before embarking on the bus to the unknown European shores.

‘Sing this to your children and I will always be alive. Your eyes might mist, you will feel your chest heavy but you will have the warmth of my blankets and the smell of my soup. This will be your home.’

Amidst the small ponds created from last night’s downpour, Ismael and Asma jump in the mud with their boots. Nadir prepares the kettle for the evening tea. The song cannot leave his head today and he starts to worry. ‘Something seems wrong today, Fatima’ he whispers to his wife. ‘Stop acting weird Nadi! You are scaring me with this nonsense’ she reacts.

Storm clouds are gathering again and everyone is preparing their tents and makeshift homes for the worst. No one worries as much as Nadir today though. He has that feeling in his stomach, like he did on the day his home turned into a pile of debris; a gift given to him by the barrel bombs.

‘My Fatima, bring the kids in, those clouds look threatening’, despite knowing it wasn’t the weather. Ismael’s eyes are red and his breathing feels heavy. Nadir touches his boy’s forehead and he is burning up. They all fear that the virus has visited their family and they dread for the worst.

The first rain drops fall as the night starts covering the camp. The smell of the wet soil covers that of the burning wood and all you can

hear is the rain. Silence all over.

In the tent the boy starts coughing persistently. Nadir runs out, through the raging storm, to the tent where Abdul-Naser, the GP doctor from Herat, lives. Wandering around in the dark he keeps looping a verse from the lullaby inside his brain ‘Rima, Rima the one who loves you shall kiss, and the one who hates you will go away’.

Silence breaks, men shouting in Greek, ‘Your time has come, scum of the earth’. A raging horde storms the camp, breaking and beating, like a bunch of wild dogs in a sheep shed. Crying, pleading men and women scatter as the hellishly enraged mob terrorizes the residents bounded by the downpour. Nadir pushing through the rumble darts back to his family.

A bulky, long bearded man has snatched the sick child, shaking him like a ragdoll, screaming at the top of his deep, threatening voice. On his other hand he brandishes a shepherd’s crook which he lands directly on Fatima’s legs. She screams in pain, Nadir leaps and gets a second hit on his face. ‘You should have stayed home you fucking Taliban’.

‘Riots have erupted yesterday at Vial camp in Chios, between migrants of different origins’ dictated the lady with the engaging blonde hair, on the 2pm TV news.

‘We should have stayed home’ said Fatima to Nadir, all covered in mud and blood, next to their broken down ‘home’, embraced as tight as possible around their terror-stricken children.

*Nick Paleologos is a professional photographer and a D.I.Y. musician.

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