"Details make stories human, and the more human a story can be, the better." ~ Ernest Hemingway

"A short story must have a single mood and every sentence must build towards it." ~ Edgar Allan Poe

"Find the key emotion; this may be all you need know to find your short story." ~ F. Scott Fitzgerald

"If writing novels is like planting a forest, then writing short stories is more like planting a garden." ~ Haruki Murakami

The hope for his homeland had crumbled around young Yehoshua. Each morning, his eyes met the pale horizon of Gaza, where smoke from the white phosphorus bombs rose like prayers unanswered. His school—gone. His friends—buried beneath stones, and twisted, mutilated iron rebar, not graves. Yet still, he clutched his only textbook—The Qur'an, a relic of learning amidst the Israeli military extermination.

The Israeli bombs fell like a warlord’s hammer, indifferent, unceasing. Hospitals, schools, homes, everything pulverized by fire from the exploded bombs. The others had fled or lay in silence, but Yehoshua remained, defiant in his oppression.

One night, beneath the cold Mediterranean coastal sky, a phone flickered in the ruins. By its fragile light, Yehoshua read. Not because there was hope—hope was a childish illusion—but because reading, learning, was the last Intifada. The last thing the Israeli military couldn’t take.

“The Israeli military destroy everything,” Yehoshua thought bitterly. “But they cannot destroy my mind and my faith.” And so, beneath the endless bombs, he sought his education—not for survival, but for dignity.

Only dignity remained.

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