{"id":19568,"date":"2025-05-18T16:51:25","date_gmt":"2025-05-18T21:51:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.mcneese.edu\/thereview\/?p=19568"},"modified":"2025-05-31T20:47:15","modified_gmt":"2025-06-01T01:47:15","slug":"fly-away","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.mcneese.edu\/thereview\/2025\/05\/18\/fly-away\/","title":{"rendered":"Fly Away"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"has-large-font-size\"><strong>Fly Away<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-social-links is-content-justification-right is-layout-flex wp-container-core-social-links-is-layout-765c4724 wp-block-social-links-is-layout-flex\"><li class=\"wp-social-link wp-social-link-facebook  wp-block-social-link\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/profile.php?id=61556140010887\" class=\"wp-block-social-link-anchor\"><svg width=\"24\" height=\"24\" viewBox=\"0 0 24 24\" version=\"1.1\" xmlns=\"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg\" aria-hidden=\"true\" focusable=\"false\"><path d=\"M12 2C6.5 2 2 6.5 2 12c0 5 3.7 9.1 8.4 9.9v-7H7.9V12h2.5V9.8c0-2.5 1.5-3.9 3.8-3.9 1.1 0 2.2.2 2.2.2v2.5h-1.3c-1.2 0-1.6.8-1.6 1.6V12h2.8l-.4 2.9h-2.3v7C18.3 21.1 22 17 22 12c0-5.5-4.5-10-10-10z\"><\/path><\/svg><span class=\"wp-block-social-link-label screen-reader-text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><\/li>\n\n<li class=\"wp-social-link wp-social-link-instagram  wp-block-social-link\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/boudin_mcneese\/\" class=\"wp-block-social-link-anchor\"><svg width=\"24\" height=\"24\" viewBox=\"0 0 24 24\" version=\"1.1\" xmlns=\"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg\" aria-hidden=\"true\" focusable=\"false\"><path d=\"M12,4.622c2.403,0,2.688,0.009,3.637,0.052c0.877,0.04,1.354,0.187,1.671,0.31c0.42,0.163,0.72,0.358,1.035,0.673 c0.315,0.315,0.51,0.615,0.673,1.035c0.123,0.317,0.27,0.794,0.31,1.671c0.043,0.949,0.052,1.234,0.052,3.637 s-0.009,2.688-0.052,3.637c-0.04,0.877-0.187,1.354-0.31,1.671c-0.163,0.42-0.358,0.72-0.673,1.035 c-0.315,0.315-0.615,0.51-1.035,0.673c-0.317,0.123-0.794,0.27-1.671,0.31c-0.949,0.043-1.233,0.052-3.637,0.052 s-2.688-0.009-3.637-0.052c-0.877-0.04-1.354-0.187-1.671-0.31c-0.42-0.163-0.72-0.358-1.035-0.673 c-0.315-0.315-0.51-0.615-0.673-1.035c-0.123-0.317-0.27-0.794-0.31-1.671C4.631,14.688,4.622,14.403,4.622,12 s0.009-2.688,0.052-3.637c0.04-0.877,0.187-1.354,0.31-1.671c0.163-0.42,0.358-0.72,0.673-1.035 c0.315-0.315,0.615-0.51,1.035-0.673c0.317-0.123,0.794-0.27,1.671-0.31C9.312,4.631,9.597,4.622,12,4.622 M12,3 C9.556,3,9.249,3.01,8.289,3.054C7.331,3.098,6.677,3.25,6.105,3.472C5.513,3.702,5.011,4.01,4.511,4.511 c-0.5,0.5-0.808,1.002-1.038,1.594C3.25,6.677,3.098,7.331,3.054,8.289C3.01,9.249,3,9.556,3,12c0,2.444,0.01,2.751,0.054,3.711 c0.044,0.958,0.196,1.612,0.418,2.185c0.23,0.592,0.538,1.094,1.038,1.594c0.5,0.5,1.002,0.808,1.594,1.038 c0.572,0.222,1.227,0.375,2.185,0.418C9.249,20.99,9.556,21,12,21s2.751-0.01,3.711-0.054c0.958-0.044,1.612-0.196,2.185-0.418 c0.592-0.23,1.094-0.538,1.594-1.038c0.5-0.5,0.808-1.002,1.038-1.594c0.222-0.572,0.375-1.227,0.418-2.185 C20.99,14.751,21,14.444,21,12s-0.01-2.751-0.054-3.711c-0.044-0.958-0.196-1.612-0.418-2.185c-0.23-0.592-0.538-1.094-1.038-1.594 c-0.5-0.5-1.002-0.808-1.594-1.038c-0.572-0.222-1.227-0.375-2.185-0.418C14.751,3.01,14.444,3,12,3L12,3z M12,7.378 c-2.552,0-4.622,2.069-4.622,4.622S9.448,16.622,12,16.622s4.622-2.069,4.622-4.622S14.552,7.378,12,7.378z M12,15 c-1.657,0-3-1.343-3-3s1.343-3,3-3s3,1.343,3,3S13.657,15,12,15z M16.804,6.116c-0.596,0-1.08,0.484-1.08,1.08 s0.484,1.08,1.08,1.08c0.596,0,1.08-0.484,1.08-1.08S17.401,6.116,16.804,6.116z\"><\/path><\/svg><span class=\"wp-block-social-link-label screen-reader-text\">Instagram<\/span><\/a><\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\"><strong>Maryah Converse<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">__________<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center\" style=\"font-size:18px\">The most kites flown simultaneously is 12,350 and was achieved by children of the Gaza<br>Strip at an event organised by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency at Al-Waha<br>beach, Gaza Strip, on 28 July 2011.<br>\u2013 <em>Guiness Book of World Records<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\"><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">Leaning against the wall of the courtyard at the U.N. school, she squeezes the dirty, ripped knees of her grimy bloodied jeans tight to her chest, trying to keep dry the book tucked to her chest.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">\u201cYou can\u2019t take that, Samyah!\u201d her mother had scolded, \u201conly the essentials!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">\u201cI will carry it,\u201d Samyah had insisted, just as her littlest brother Omar insisted on his football.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">Now the book is all she has.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center has-medium-font-size\">*<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">\u201c<em>Khaaloh<\/em> Adel!\u201d yelled her fifth brother Fuad from the bedroom. \u201cUncle Adel on the Whatsapp!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">Samyah ran to the bedroom. <em>Khaaloh<\/em> Adel, Mama\u2019s baby brother, was her favorite uncle. Usually, he called on Friday nights on his way to <em>jummah<\/em> prayer at a <em>masjid<\/em> in a place called Patterson in a place called New Jersey far away in America. When it was <em>jummah<\/em> prayer time in Patterson, it was <em>maghreb<\/em> prayer at Samyah\u2019s house, just after dinner. But <em>khaaloh<\/em> Adel hadn\u2019t called in weeks.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">Since the war started, he had sent them text messages every day, when he got up in the morning and it was lunch time here, and when he went to bed at night and it was <em>fajr<\/em> dawn prayers here, to check that Samyah and her family were safe. He hadn\u2019t called for weeks because Baba had to save the battery on the phone. They never knew how soon the electricity would go out, how long until it was back. Now, Samyah could hear <em>khaaloh<\/em> Adel\u2019s <em>salaam<\/em>s from the bedroom.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">This week, the bombs had stopped. Well, not stopped, but they weren\u2019t all the time anymore. Baba said it was temporary, and that was why they went to <em>ammoh<\/em> Bilal\u2019s apartment, Baba\u2019s big brother in the south. When the bombs came back, it would be safer here, they said. That\u2019s what Baba told her. And <em>ammoh<\/em> Bilal had solar panels clamped to his balcony so they could charge Baba\u2019s phone even when the electricity was out. It meant that they could finally see <em>khaaloh<\/em> Adel on video again.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">Samyah clutched her thick book to her chest, the iridescence on its cover flashing in the sunlight, as she leaned into her uncle\u2019s field of view. \u201c<em>Yaa khaaloh<\/em>! How. Are. You?\u201d she asked in the painstakingly enunciated English she had learned at the U.N. summer camp last year.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">\u201cI\u2019m fine, <em>al-Hamdu li-l-llah<\/em>,\u201d he said, switching into Arabic. \u201cAre you practicing your English?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">\u201cYes, <em>yaa<\/em> <em>khaaloh<\/em>! I\u2019m going to be very good!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\"><em>Khaaloh<\/em> tilts his head. \u201cWhat are you holding, <em>yaa<\/em> Samyah?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">She brandished the big, fat book, newspaper clippings fluttering past the edges of the iridescent cover. \u201cYour book Guiness, <em>khaaloh<\/em>!\u201d&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">\u201cYou brought this with you from the north?\u201d He sounded surprised, almost appalled, but not angry or frightened as Mama had been.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">\u201cIt\u2019s your book, <em>khaaloh<\/em>! I couldn\u2019t leave it behind. It\u2019s your record! One day, <em>khaaloh<\/em>, I will be in the Guiness, too, and then I will go to the America and get the Masters and be an engineer like you, and I\u2019ll come back here and build houses with bomb shelters to keep us safe like the occupiers have, and design drones that can keep the bombs away, and\u2014\u201d&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">Naser, her third brother, smacked Samyah\u2019s head out of the video frame. \u201cEnough, little donkey. I\u2019m talking to <em>khaaloh<\/em> Adel now. Get lost.\u201d&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center\">*<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">Samyah leans against the wall of the courtyard at the U.N. school, hugging the dirty, ripped knees of her grimy bloodied jeans tight to her chest, trying to keep dry the book tucked to her chest under the dusty, too-big maroon sweater that had been her eldest sister Rania\u2019s. It had been drying on the roof of <em>ammoh<\/em> Bilal\u2019s apartment block, the only thing that Samyah had recognized in the rubble.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">Her glazed eyes stare unseeing into the school courtyard crowded with tents and families huddling under tarps from the light, cold rain. Samyah\u2019s ears are inured to the cries of the wounded whose pain can\u2019t be eased, the whines and moans of children whose hunger can\u2019t be assuaged.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">She can only remember how annoyed her mother had been when Samyah wouldn\u2019t take \u2018no\u2019 for an answer, begging to join the children\u2019s program at the U.N. school. \u201cIt will be safe, Mama, I swear to God!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">She can only recall the annoyance on Rania\u2019s face as she inked in permanent marker on Samyah\u2019s bicep her full name and Baba\u2019s mobile number, in case the worst happened and the doctors needed to identify her. Bombs had crushed other schools and U.N. facilities, <em>ammoh<\/em> Bilal had said. She can only hear Naser\u2019s recently descended voice as he pushed her through the gates of the school and growled, \u201cI\u2019ll be back after <em>asr<\/em> afternoon prayers. Don\u2019t make me wait.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">She can only hear the blast of the attack, too close, too loud, making her ears ring and her heart seize up as her body understood before her mind could catch up that the attack was in the direction of her <em>ammoh<\/em> Bilal\u2019s house.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">Both her hands are bandaged to the wrists, shredded raw in a fog of terror that keeps her from remembering the pain, digging frantically, helplessly, guiltily through the wreckage of rubble and glass until she fainted from lost blood. The paramedic who dragged her away from the mountain of death had written new English letters on her forearm, WCNSF: wounded child, no surviving family.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">Now there is only <em>khaaloh<\/em> Adel, in a place called Patterson far away, but Baba and his phone, <em>ammoh<\/em> Bilal and his solar panels, they\u2019re all gone now. How will <em>khaaloh<\/em> Adel find her? How will he even know to look for Samyah? Her beloved <em>khaaloh<\/em> Adel who helped set a world record flying his kite on the beach, and then had flown far away where there was only the free air.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">She wants to fly away, too. On a kite, on a plane, on a bomb of her own, does it matter how? Anywhere not to be so totally alone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">__________<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">Now a 2025 Fulbright-Hays Doctoral Dissertation Research Fellow in Jordan, <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/maryahconverse.com\/\">Maryah Converse<\/a><\/strong> was a Peace Corps Volunteer in Jordan (2004-2006), and then an English teacher in Jordan (2008-2010), and a student in Cairo during the 2011 Egyptian Revolution. Her publications include essays, fiction and poetry in <em>New Madrid Journal<\/em>, <em>Silk Road Review<\/em>,<em> Michigan Quarterly Review<\/em>, and <em>L\u2019\u00c9ph\u00e9m\u00e8re Review<\/em>. She holds a Masters in Near Eastern Languages and Cultures, and is a PhD candidate in Arabic applied linguistics. <a href=\"http:\/\/maryahc.bsky.social\/\">maryahc.bsky.social<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>__________<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"alignleft size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"438\" height=\"211\" src=\"https:\/\/www.mcneese.edu\/thereview\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/37\/2024\/01\/boudin-logo-1.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-15484\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.mcneese.edu\/thereview\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/37\/2024\/01\/boudin-logo-1.jpg 438w, https:\/\/www.mcneese.edu\/thereview\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/37\/2024\/01\/boudin-logo-1-300x145.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 438px) 100vw, 438px\" \/><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center has-large-font-size\">\ud83e\udca0 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mcneese.edu\/thereview\/2025\/05\/22\/letter-from-the-guest-editor-12\/\" data-type=\"link\" data-id=\"https:\/\/www.mcneese.edu\/thereview\/2025\/05\/22\/letter-from-the-guest-editor-12\/\">Back<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mcneese.edu\/thereview\/2025\/05\/18\/how-%EC%95%84%EB%B9%A0-learned-english\/\">Next<\/a> \ud83e\udca1<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">To learn more about submitting your work to <em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.mcneese.edu\/thereview\/boudin-submissions\/\">Boudin<\/a><\/em> or applying to McNeese State University&#8217;s Creative Writing <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mcneese.edu\/thereview\/mfa-application-submissions\/\">MFA program<\/a>, please visit Submissions for details.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Fly Away Maryah Converse __________ The most kites flown simultaneously is 12,350 and was achieved by children of the GazaStrip at an event organised by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency at Al-Wahabeach, Gaza Strip, on 28 July 2011.\u2013 Guiness Book of World Records Leaning against the wall of the courtyard at the U.N.&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":42,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[230],"tags":[75,26],"class_list":["post-19568","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-finding-home","tag-boudin","tag-fiction"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mcneese.edu\/thereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19568","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mcneese.edu\/thereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mcneese.edu\/thereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mcneese.edu\/thereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/42"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mcneese.edu\/thereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19568"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.mcneese.edu\/thereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19568\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19776,"href":"https:\/\/www.mcneese.edu\/thereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19568\/revisions\/19776"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mcneese.edu\/thereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19568"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mcneese.edu\/thereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19568"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mcneese.edu\/thereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19568"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}