I had a dream last night. I knew immediately that it was a dream. I could tell for in the dream, the whole day passed without a single bomb blast. I saw birds in the air, and I saw flowers in the street. I saw for the first time in my six years of life, a happy family, a family where the kids jumped around in the streets and the parents could actually afford to walk a few yards behind. I saw people roaming the streets and not crouching under rubble and ducking behind fences. In the dream, I was worried not about my mother getting home safely, but about my doll. I was concerned not about getting bread for dinner but about getting chocolate!

I have heard people used to live that way. My grandmother told me her childhood was such; I remember her telling me about her dad taking her on walks with an ice cream in her hand. She told me about actually having enough food to fill the bellies of all the household. My mom struggles to keep the two of us from starving. My grandmother told me of all this and then she smiled; she got to a particularly good memory, a memory that lit up her face. I still remember that smile, the one she wore so peacefully right before she was about to tell me, but then she got killed. She was blown apart when a bomb went off, and then my mom pulled me out of the rubble.

I have heard people say this is not what normal life is like. But this is all I have seen all my life. Death to me is but a norm. I see bodies on the street so frequently whenever my mom actually manages to take me to school. She tells me they used to go to school every day!!! She said she had friends -- friends she knew all her life. I tried that too once. But the girl I met, she never came to school the next day.

I had a dream last night. I knew immediately that it was a dream. I could tell for in the dream I had a pet. A real pet! My mom says we used to have one. But then the soldiers killed it. I saw a room. That was my room. It had a bed, a pink bed! I saw a large field, but instead of bomb craters and blazing tank parts there were these colourful structures. My mom says they are called swings. I saw in that dream clothes. Clothes that were not made from my mother's old dress that got shredded by the bullets, but instead clean clothes, made for me especially. They were the sort of clothes I liked. My mom says those are called "new" clothes… and then I heard it. I heard it for the first time after ages. It felt so nice!! Not a gunshot heard. Not a crash or a shatter. Not a scream or a yell. I heard it…. I heard silence.

I had a dream last night. I knew immediately that it was a dream. I could tell for in the dream, I saw my dad. In that dream….I saw utopia.