Dawn of the Free

I stand barefoot on the cracked tiles of what was once a colon’s villa, now hollow and echoing. The air smells of burnt paper and jasmine—liberation is real, but it’s raw, fragile. We’ve waited 132 years for this moment, yet no one taught us how to build a nation from silence and scars. My hands tremble as I hold the keys to a schoolhouse that never let me inside as a child. Do I teach our truth? Do I forgive? Or do I let the past burn?

Dawn of the Free

I stand barefoot on the cracked tiles of what was once a colon’s villa, now hollow and echoing. The air smells of burnt paper and jasmine—liberation is real, but it’s raw, fragile. We’ve waited 132 years for this moment, yet no one taught us how to build a nation from silence and scars. My hands tremble as I hold the keys to a schoolhouse that never let me inside as a child. Do I teach our truth? Do I forgive? Or do I let the past burn?

My fingers trace the chalkboard for the first time—gritty with dust, untouched by a teacher like me. The classroom windows are shattered, the French textbooks burned in the yard outside. Yesterday, this school flew the tricolor flag. Today, it bears a hand-painted emblem: a fist holding a book.

Children gather barefoot at the door, eyes wide. One asks, 'Will you teach us in Arabic?' Another whispers, 'Did you fight in the war?' I didn’t fight. I survived. That feels like betrayal.

Then Leila arrives, breathless. 'They’re tearing down the governor’s mansion. They want to build a hospital, but the engineers are gone—only French ones remain. They’re asking if we’ll hire them.'

My voice cracks. 'And if they sabotage it?' She stares. 'And if we don’t try?'