You believe in your reality. You believe things are happening around you – you believe your story. But what if it isn’t entirely real? What if it’s something your mind created for your own sanity? Something carefully constructed to shield you from a truth that might shatter you like glass. Until someone tells you otherwise, you hold onto it – this version of reality your mind built, playing its own quiet game like a vicious child trying to protect you in the only way it knows.
Every lemon will bring forth a child, and the lemons will never die out – Nizar Qabbani
Salama is an 18 year old pharmacy student in Homs, Syria – once a city of 1.5 million people, now slowly being reduced to rubble under the weight of revolution. Pulled from her shelves of medicines into the chaos of a war-ravaged hospital, she is forced to become something she never trained to be: a surgeon. She loses her family to the very uprising that was supposed to bring freedom and protection. What remains is a promise – to protect Layla, her pregnant sister-in-law and her last thread to the people she loved. But haunting her every step is Khawf, a figure no one else can see, a physical manifestation of her own fear, a mind’s desperate invention to keep her moving when moving is the only way to survive.
Even in the face of destruction, love story finds its way through the cracks – soft, unexpected, and necessary. A boy who smells like lemons. Lemons, in this book, are more than just a scent. They become a symbol of resilience – the enduring strength of Syrians in the face of destruction. A reminder that even in the harshest realities, hope can still exist, quietly but stubbornly.
Everywhere. Since the beginning of time, I have awoken in people’s hearts. I’ve been given many names in countless languages. In yours, I’m Khawf. In English, Fear. In German, Angst. Humans have listened to my whispers, heeded my council, and tasted my power. I’m everywhere. In the breaths of a king executed by his people. In the last heartbeats of a soldier bleeding out alone. In the tears of a pregnant girl dying at her doorstep
Mind can be calm and devilish at the same time. It can reshape reality, build entire worlds from nothing – like a city emerging from water, with no trace of what existed before. Truth becomes fragile in its hands. It bends and shifts, like debris scattered after a war.
This book literally made me question the whole concept of reality. How do you really know that your mind isn’t framing a different version just to keep you sane? And maybe that’s what a good book does – it doesn’t just tell a story, it unsettles you. The words don’t feel forced; they just flow. I didn’t have to think much while writing the peice – it came naturally. Zoulfa Katouh’s writing had that kind of impact on me.
Don’t focus on the darkness and sadness. If you do, you won’t see the light, even if it’s staring you in the face
☘️☘️☘️
Leisure & Life 