The Night the Sky Trembled

The very first explosion that reached my ears, I presumed it to be thunder. The sound broke over the mountains like a liberal storm, but the atmosphere was unobstructed. The time was night, and the weather was silent. After that, a blast arrived—louder than before, sharper, and furious. The building vibrated. The ceiling gave off some dust. For a brief time, I was not sure if it was the earth shaking or my fingers.

In a hurry, people came out of their houses. Women with their children, men screaming names into the smoke were the first ones to show up. Someone shouted, “Stay indoors!” Another one screamed, “It’s the army!” But the truth was nobody was really sure. At that moment, everything I knew about safety just vanished.

The following day, there was no more noise in the streets but the sound of glass that had been broken and the mild buzzing of fear. The school was closed. The market was not visited by anyone. There was a smell of metal that had been burned in the air. It should have been a typical day — my friends and I were laughing, and I was teasing one of them on the way to the classroom. However, we were standing there outside, counting the army trucks passing by, and their wheels were destroying what remained of the night before.

That marked the start of a different sort of existence — one where a person rose without knowing if another blast would be the sound for the day or if a street that was inhabited by a familiar face would be suddenly deserted.

Still, there was one odd thing: the whole fear thing did not completely consume me. Rather it ignited something inside me accompanied by the question.

Why?

Why were we imprisoned in the middle of others' war? Why did the unfamiliar people get to pick who would enjoy the peace and who would have to flee for their lives? Why did the officials' tone remain reassuring while our valley was being educated on the co-existence with terror?

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AI GPT*

From that point, I started to perceive the world of radio differently. Each announcement over the radio, every talk between grown-ups,…

One night, not long after that, another bomb went off in the mountains. It was more intense, nearer. I have a picture in my mind of me on the roof with the wind blowing the dust and fear into my face. My dad called me to come down, but I was still unable to take a step.

The night sky turned orange for an instant - very strange and very cruel - and I came to a realization. Even in a state of fear, I still wanted to see, and I still wanted to get the whole picture.

When at last the night returned, I vacated my place in darkness and stationed myself outside to take in some crickets' song. The world around me was like a very sensitive balloon about to burst anytime soon. However, I could feel something existing in that fragility — curiosity.

Years later, whenever people ask me reason behind my choice of political science as a major, I visualize those nights. The bombings. The confusion. The unanswered questions. The noise of war did not only shape me, but also the silence that followed. The silence during which I came to realize that knowing the world was not a choice but rather a means to survival.

I began to see beyond the bombs. Beyond the dread. I witnessed people supporting one another even in the most trivial aspect — an elderly man distributing bread, a teacher confronting the danger of…

For sure, the bombs gave me a big scare. They shattered the tranquility of my infancy. But at the same time, they were the triggers of my awareness. They indulged my curiosity, they questioned my thoughts, they concerned me.

Occasionally, I still recall the shaking of windows, the light moving over the hills, and the noise of a thousand heartbeats speeding up together in the darkness.

But what is left most in my memory is not the terror but the ignition that came after- the desire to find out why the world breaks and how it may be healed.

And perhaps that is what actually started that night- not the war outside but the one inside me. The one that changed fear into fascination and curiosity into the goal.