wildscape. literary journal

Preschool for Dead Kids
by Jaq Green

       In Gaza, the dogs are eating the children's bodies.
       Here, in the sun-drenched classroom we rent from the Baptist church on Main, we're listening to the Wiggles. I step over the kids sprawled on our faded alphabet rug as I clip each of their original construction paper mosaics to the clothesline above us. Pause to remind Asfand that we don't throw gluesticks at our friends. Turn to put the gluesticks away. And there’s Badrai, staring solemnly from the corner, chewing on a marker. 
       Badrai doesn’t speak much. Not in English or Pashto. I kneel in front of her and pry the marker from her grip.
       “Is green your favorite color?”
       She doesn’t protest. Just stares at me, eyes all ink and dew, like the tip of a marker.
       “This is green. It's for coloring, not eating. Yucky.”
       I hold out my hand and she takes it. Crayola ink smears between our palms. There’s a bathroom down the hall, the grubby beige kind with floral decor only ever found in white churches from the seventies. I hold Badrai up so she can wave her hand in front of the paper towel dispenser. She smacks it, leaving a preschooler-sized streak of green. I put her down, rip off the paper towel, and wet it in the greige sinks.
       Badrai’s glowering even before I kneel down. I pretend not to notice.
       “Wow, you are so messy. You’re the messiest kid in the whole world.” I put one hand on her shoulder to keep her where she is as the other scrubs her face. “After we do a good job getting messy we gotta do a good job cleaning up.”
       Badrai’s lips squirm ferociously. But she doesn’t pull away. She’s so patient, for a three year old. Silent even when I’m torturing her.
       “Three more seconds, okay? One, two… oh look! There's a beautiful Badrai under all that dirt!”
       She sighs and wipes her mouth on her sleeve. It's still stained green.

       In Gaza, six-year-old Hind calls her mother from the carseat she can't get out of. Next to her, the corpses of her cousins jerk and shudder as bullets freckle the car. The Palestine Red Crescent Society sends a rescue team in an ambulance. Loses contact. 
       Twelve days later, reporters find charred EMT bodies and a shell-blasted ambulance within eyesight of Hind. She’s still strapped to the carseat. 
       In my classroom, it's naptime. We don't have enough cots so Badrai sleeps on my jacket, curled beneath the coat hooks. Cheek resting on her green-stained palm.
       Across the room, I rub Asfand’s back, propping my leg up to block his view of Noor. They've decided they're fighting. My co-teacher rocks Ehsan in her lap, humming absently as she combs her fingers through her dark hair. Reties it beneath her headscarf.
       I say, “Amma. Mom.”
       She nods. 
       “Abba. Dad.”
       Another nod.
       “Auntie?”
       Before she can answer, Asfand kicks Noor. I shake my head at him, finger to my lips. He rolls over. 
       Across the room, Badrai’s eyes drill into me.

       In Gaza, four preteen boys carry their friend on a stretcher. His limbs are tucked neatly beneath the dusty canvas shroud. Around them, protestors chant for a ceasefire before Ramadan.
       I need to remember to find a picture book about Ramadan. And to ask the parents if any of their kids are old enough for Sawm. Probably not. I didn’t fast until I was eight.
       Badrai definitely won’t be fasting. She's barely knee-height. Devours any snack I give her. Right now it’s a granola bar, oats sticking to her grubby fist. She tugs on my jacket with her other hand and stomps her foot.
       “I know, baby. We gotta wait for Amma.”
       Badrai is the last to be picked up. The classroom is silent and dark, the goldfish crumbs vacuumed, the construction paper waving like prayer flags above us. She squeals when her mom turns the corner. Breaks away from me and races down the hall to be swept up in the warm folds of an abaya.
       Her mom doesn't speak much English. And I know exactly two words in Pashto. But we smile, wave. She laughs when I point to Badrai's green mouth.
       I wonder if she saw the video of an unnamed Palestinian man holding his daughter to his chest for the last time. She looks like she's just about to fall asleep except for the smear of black blood across her cheekbone. And the collapsed, sunken angle of her neck.
       Her father is smiling. He kisses each of her eyelids. Lays her in the rubble.
       I watch Badrai's mother tuck her into the stroller and try not to think about it.

about the author // Jaq Green