Contributor Shania Cavalida takes us on a quiet walk through Al Jaddaf before sunrise. Through the unnoticed sounds of birds beneath the Garhoud Bridge, empty buses, creek waters, and the slow arrival of dawn, this story asks us: How is stillness found in a city that is constantly in a rush?
Dear Diary,
It was five in the morning, dawn had yet to unfold her robes for sunrise, asleep along with my restless mother. With cold feet I decided to go for a walk to warm myself amidst the gentle blow of winter. I reminded my body to go slow, that we are not being chased and just ground my feet to the present, and pray for open ears, to hear—to be near the sounds of birds under the Garhoud Bridge.
Jaddaf longed for her usual morning, where the RTA bus circling the whole street, picking up those workers from the red line, the echoes of drilling for new project, tourist bus once again filled with Chinese elderly group, to feel their first fall of a leaf before dementia—the stinging heat of Dubai. But it was five in the morning, no phantom can be seen, just a perfect breeze; and an empty RTA bus moving around yearning for passengers.
Jaddaf in her silence, hummed and claimed that there’s more to this place than just desert and construction sites, and there I was guided by her kindest wind, and went in between the train of trees before the Bridge. It’s impossible to walk without fear, it was eerily dark yet I continued anyway, and as a habit I feigned calmness against a choir of crickets hiding beneath the bush. The thunders of sports cars roaring, as if to cause a stir and trouble my imagination.
Until I reached and took shelter under the Garhoud Bridge along its sharp blue lights, ever so reflecting on the surface of the creek waters, rippling and pulling the shells off the shore. Dawn finally opened her curtains and welcomed the sky with faint crimson, then my faith finally restored when I heard the birds first notes for the morning, since it is in their nature to sing, and with that they never complained about their divine work.
I thought to myself while looking up to them, that their songs are useless here. For workers are too occupied to hear them, nor have time to pause and listen. But how could they? Jaddaf is loud with her caterwauling ongoing projects, and their minds echoed with impending doom of tasks list.
Yet their songs remained and incessantly demands us to slow and heed, since it is also in our human nature to breathe. I wonder how these birds actually think of us? For what reason they nested above the crown of Jaddaf?
These questions I carried like flies around my head as I was making my way back, and thus began the flood of people that leaked out of the metro station: walking hastily, checking their notifications, some ran all the way to the bus stop. Eyes glued to the ground or to the time attached on their wrist, ears blocked with headphones and thoughts— away from the melody orchestrated above their heads.
The workers in the sky, doing their job too, perhaps asking us to stay at the moment and to open our hearts to sing.