‘Underneath the Rubble’: A Short Story from Syria

This short story, by Syrian writer Iyad Shaheen, first appeared in Dahnoon in 2013.

Underneath the Rubble

By Iyad Shaheen

Translated by Ghada Alatrash

The earthquake that struck the city at midnight spared the lives of some before they were killed by rescue operations.

On the second floor, my friend was crouched down, pondering volcanoes and their ashes; he remained in the same position, now frozen in time, face down, his belt stuck underneath the north wall of the bathroom, his buttocks cemented to the jagged side wall, while all around him were five stories of concrete and rubble, three meters thick.

One of my feet was stuck under the fridge, my head in the pantry, on a plate of zaatar.  My other foot was bent. The ceiling and my backside were now both in the washing machine.

There was no room for any movement, no possibility to make a sound, or to turn toward the iron rod that protruded through the wall from the pantry.

I stuck out my tongue, with difficulty, and I licked the plate.  It was even harder to draw my tongue back into my mouth. I tasted oil, a sesame seed, and a lot of blood.

It was no longer possible to stick my tongue out again because one of the rescuers, in an attempt to saw someone’s head off to extract a right leg, accidentally stepped on a part of the wall with a window, causing a metal rod to pierce my left cheek and come out of my right. The sesame seed was now stuck to the rod, and my tongue was unable to wrap itself around the rod and lick the seed again.

Underneath the rubble, one can never predict or be certain of anything.

Successfully getting your fingers out from beneath a bookcase can suddenly place your head under the wall of another room.

In this prodigious rubble, one cannot guess what supports what.  If a rescuer or a bystander pulls on the hem of an empty shirt, the entire course of the rubble may be altered.

Another collapse reveals a trapped hand and a loose foot.

For instance, if you want to reach for the pen from the peephole so that you can write your will, a will that will likely not survive, many unforeseen things may occur in the process. A piece of cement could be forced into your mouth, pushing your teeth into your pharynx, causing your index finger to go through the peephole instead of the pen, emerging from the other side as a skinned bone covered with ink, blood, and flesh.

The actual earthquake now happens underneath the rubble, where, step by step, despair and hope take turns amid a void that happened by chance.

I wonder if what you were doing before the building collapsed might have made a difference in determining your location under the rubble, and how that might have affected the decision of the head of the rescue team to remove a wall from a stuck foot and place it above your head. I also wonder if your attitude toward hope would have changed, had you survived like my neighbor who was protected by the same pantry in which the shrapnel of empty plates killed me.

Underneath the rubble, where there are rays of light amidst the darkness, the grace period given to you resembles the lifetime of a bubble on which a knife leans.

Iyad Shaheen (1967-2013) was born in Damascus, Syria.  He finished studying dentistry in Damascus University in 1990. In 2003, his collection “Curettage” was published, and then it was reprinted in 2008.  This piece above was published in Dahnoon in 2013.

Ghada Alatrash, PhD, is an assistant professor at the School of Critical and Creative Studies at Alberta University of the Arts in Calgary, Canada. She holds a PhD in Educational Research: Languages and Diversity from the Werklund School of Education, the University of Calgary, and a Master’s Degree in English Literature from the University of Oklahoma. Her current research speaks to Syrian art and creative expression as resistance to oppression and dictatorship. Her translation of Fadi Azzam’s Huddud’s House is forthcoming in March 2024

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