Refugee The Diary Of Ali Ismail Apr 2026

Tonight, the stars are very bright. The coast guard’s light is a white dot on the horizon. It might be rescue. It might be return. I don’t know which is scarier.

I write this to tell you the invention .

I drew a map in the condensation on the window of the bus heading to the coast. My mother thought I was drawing a cloud. But I was drawing the olive grove behind our house in Homs. The one where my brother and I buried a tin box of marbles in 2011. The marbles were blue like the sky before the jets came.

But I write this to you, future reader, not to make you sad. refugee the diary of ali ismail

By the time you reach the water, you are a ghost wearing running shoes.

We are asking for your .

The engine dies. The sea is black and greedy. Tonight, the stars are very bright

I have to close the notebook now. The water is getting higher. Tarek is handing me his left shoe.

But tonight, I am a cartographer.

War exported me. Bombs exported my neighbor, the baker. Fear exported the girl who sat in front of me in chemistry class (she could name all the elements, but she couldn't name a single safe country). It might be return

I realized something strange:

Today, I stopped being a number.

— Ali

If you are reading this, and you have a house key on a ring in your pocket, please understand: I am not a burden. I am an export.

The man next to me, a dentist from Aleppo named Tarek, keeps checking his phone. There is no signal. The battery is at 4%. He is scrolling through photos of his dental clinic. White tiles. A poster about flossing. It looks like a museum of another universe.