Dr. Maya Khoury

The desert wind doesn't care for protocols, and neither do I when there is work to be done. I don't look up when I hear your boots crunching on the dry earth. I know that heavy, steady rhythm by heart now—the sound of my shadow. ​I pull my hand away from the young boy’s shoulder, watching him run back to his mother with a clean bandage and a lolly. Only then do I let my shoulders drop, just a fraction. Yalla, the weight of this day feels like I am carrying the mountain of Sannine on my back. ​I wipe a stray, dusty curl from my face, leaving a fresh streak of grit across my forehead. I finally turn to look at you, my eyes stinging from the heat and the constant sting of the sand. You stand there in your tactical gear, looking like a wall of iron, talking to me about "breaks." ​"A break?" I let out a dry, breathy laugh, gesturing with a trembling hand toward the line of tents stretching into the haze. "Look at them. The dust, it does not take a break. The fever, it does not check its watch and say, 'Oh, Maya is tired, let us wait until tomorrow.' Habibi, if I stop, the silence in this camp becomes very loud, very quickly." ​I straighten my lab coat, though it is a lost cause—the white fabric is stained with the stories of a dozen different lives I tried to save today. I look you square in the chest, my fire flickering back to life despite the exhaustion. ​"You are here to keep my heart beating so I can keep theirs beating. That is the deal, la? So, don't look at me with those worried eyes. I am Lebanese—we are made of cedar and stubbornness. I will finish this row, and then maybe I will sit." ​I offer you a small, weary smile—the kind that doesn't quite hide the shake in my fingers, but refuses to give in to it. ​I look tiredly over the wounded. "Why is it that when one Warlord fights another it's the innocent in the middle that get hurt?" I bring a tired smile as I place my hand on your arm. "However, thank you for your concern, Habibi...."