Look up, Ismail. Raise your eyes a little and your arms: glide.
Look at the stone, the stalk, the cracks, the little line of ants that passes under door #13.
Look at the broken hinges and the stains, the distance to the light bulb, the window reflecting the vent.
Open the cement and let the sky absorb you, rise like vertigo from the sloping camp ground.
Now look, son, the sea. From there it looks quiet and beautiful but, even if you do not remember, you felt its hard foam nails scratching the boat. Your lips purple, salt in your eyes. You wore the same pink onesie that now swells with the wind and holds up your body in the air. Look and do not touch, son, the sea of souls breaking skulls on the crags of the shore.
Icarus and his Father wee also detained on an island in Greece: theirs was called Crete and a tyrannical King, Minos, ruled over it, controlling the land and the sea, inspecting every ship that prowled the coast The tyrants, Ismail, have always existed, and have always believed that the land is theirs and that no one can move without their permission. To leave the island, which had begun to suffocate them, Daedalus devised the only way possible to escape the hands of Minos: the air.
Then they flew. Icarus could not believe it. Suddenly the island became tiny, and he felt freedom like a fierce madness ricocheting inside his
chest.
He flew, and flew, and never noticed that the wax was melting, but he saw the feathers fall loose and felt fear just before the fall, unaware
of his weight, his speed, his impact.
The memory comes to me every time I fold a shirt: one sleeve towards the centre, then the other, the bottom half with the top one. I turned it around and it appeared flat like an envelope. If it is not very dirty from the day, she said, you do it like this before going to bed instead of leaving it curled up on the floor. You put it in the suitcase, neatly folded on top of the others. I do not know if I ever did, but my mother still continued teaching me.
She had no idea then that we had another 14 months to wait in Athens. Every day she marked a new life, a new home, a new day-to-day rhythm that made us forget the uncertainty of everything around us—which had already driven many others to madness.
I turned twelve in April 2017. That day my mother sent me to Abu Abbas for a haircut and she managed to organized a party at the squat. She was capable of anything: accustomed to the hardships, she joked, because she was a double refugee: Palestinian in Syria, Syrian-Palestinian in Europe. She didn’t continue the list: she died in Frankfurt before the far right of Germany won in 2025. A while has passed, but in all the countries I have had to cross since then, I always think of her and of the time we spent in Athens and I make sure my shirts are neatly folded inside the suitcases.
Demographics of beneficiary:
First name: SULEYMAN. Demographics of beneficiary:
Family name: ALIOU. First name: MINA. Demographics of beneficiary:
Date of birth: 24/07/1994. Family name: GHOLAMI. First name: ALI Demographics of beneficiary:
Country of origin: Nigeria. Date of birth: 08/01/1961. Family name: ALHASOUN First name: HANAN
Gender: Male. Country of origin: Afghanistan. Date of birth: 04/05/2000 Family name: SOLIMAN.
Language(s) for communication: English. Gender: Female. Country of origin: Iraq. Date of birth: 07/11/2011.
In Greece since: 25/08/2016. Language (s) for communication: Farsi Gender: Male Country of origin: Syria
Legal Status: Undocumented. In Greece since: 10/01/2016 Language (s) for communication: Sorani Gender: Female
Legal Status: Asylum seeker (fully registered). In Greece since: 14/03/2015 Language (s) for communication: Arabic.
Legal Status: Refugee Status. In Greece since: 03/12/2016.
Legal Status: Asylum seeker (pre-registered).
Short mental health history: In Nigeria (Baga town, state of Borno) he witnessed a terrorist attack where he lost his family.
Born in Aleppo at the beginning of the war, lost hearing at an early age from bombing.
Left Afghanistan in September, 2015 due to Taliban presence.
Lived in Mosul away from family due to work.
Went from Nigeria to Niger and then to Libya where he was forced to work without being paid or nourished.
Travelled with mum and dad to Ismir, Turkey, in order to cross to Greece. Reached the island of Samos in December 2016, suffered sexual harassment by smuggler.
Captured by Daesh in May 2014, tortured, hands were cut off. Finally reached Greece after being rescued by coast guard when boat was sinking, two men drown.
Reached Greece in December 2016, Chios.
Left camp in Samos due to difficult living conditions and violent fights.
Current emotions as described: Exhaustion, grief; memories of time in Libya and sea journey come back frequently.
Fear, anguish, she feels confused and can’t find purpose. He feels useless, heavy sensation of monotony. General detachment, including mum and dad.
Ongoing headaches. Insomnia. Wished he could cry but he can’t. Wished she could talk but she can’t.
Lack of control, uncertainty of future.
Lack of control, uncertainty of future.
Lack of control, uncertainty of future.
Golden Dawn
Dawn Breaks.
No one sees this instant
disjointed and blurred
as the world is about to break apart: things have lost all matter and chronology,
They float like outspread wings,
like wings exposed to a sudden tear.
No one sees the border:
an instant of threat touching both sides
of distance.
Below, the waves break with echoes of ships, torn life vests tangle with sea weed and mountains of shoes.
Above, there’s a cross fixed in the air like a frozen knife, stabbing its hilt into the rock - where vertical arms reach out from below - opening the crack of voices from where blind horses emerge:
We are the new Spartans
The heirs of those glorious soldiers Greece belongs to the Greeks blood.
Honor, Golden Dawn.
Dawn breaks.
In the last quake of a boarder a flag gets tangled
in the rider’s hollow teeth, the horses angrily mimic
the caw of a bird and then hurl themselves into the sea closing behind them
the fragile crack of time.
