🎃 zee de pumpkin 🎃

The most despicable form of genocide has recently come to light with the spread of a drug called Oxycodone among the population. Israel has reportedly been smuggling it in through bags of flour provided as aid. As a pharmacist, let me explain what this drug is: it belongs to the opioid family and is used to relieve severe pain when regular painkillers fail—especially for cancer patients. But the problem with this drug is that it acts on specific receptors in the nervous system, causing severe addiction, a decrease in heart rate, impaired awareness and consciousness, and dangerous respiratory depression. Its side effects are numerous and can transform a person into something unrecognizable—a shell of who they were. It has also been revealed that the drug is not only hidden inside flour bags, but the flour itself appears to be mixed with it. Our battle with them is not only a battle of weapons, but also a battle of awareness and consciousness. They are masters at numbing our minds, distorting our perception, and using every means possible to erase our collective awareness and turn us against one another.

I am Omar Hamad, a writer from Gaza. On a blue morning, full of life, the genocide will end. The sun will rise, indifferent to the rubble of that sorrowful city, and the birds will appear as you’ve never seen them before, building their nests atop a rusted tank or a tent left behind by a displaced person. The genocide will end, and while you see a young man and his fiancée walking down the street smiling, you will also see an old man wiping the dust off a skull he found beneath one of the destroyed houses. The genocide will end, and a father will eat in the street, unashamed, because his children have enough food, while the clouds laugh in hues of crimson-tinged yellow. We know well that the end of war does not mean the return of life as it once was. The genocide will end, and people will return to their homes—or to what remains of the stones of their homes. And while you see a hand wiping away the tears of its children, you will see another, amputated hand that once dreamed of a boxing game… or a game of chess. And you will find me dusting off the books that survived the occupation and the cooking fires. You will find me searching among the rubble for one of my shirts, while my mother rejoices at finding beneath the wreckage a Palestinian dress gifted to her by my grandmother—may God have mercy on her. The genocide will end… and perhaps you will find me—or you will not.