The Regret Test

In wars, the days become indistinguishable. There will be a flaw in its bullet. Every day becomes a Dubai lived in extra time. You forget that in reality, to meet the needs of others, you bury your loneliness in the café, in fleeting stories, in virtual conversations that find their way between two weeping emoji faces on your mobile phone. Poetry has become an excuse for the infrastructure of life: love, flirting, dates. All of these become forbidden by the shells that, if they don't reach you, strike at the very core of your sense of existence. In war, you reach it. Life is stripped of the trappings of power and appears naked in its true form, harsh in its true form, terrifying in its true form. And the bloody stories rise to the surface. “The Test of Regret” tells the story of a writer adept at missing opportunities, gifted at scattering despair, living adrift in a fragile bubble, trying to tame his demons. He is a writer who scatters his words in the alleys of ancient Damascus, and they are three girls on the strands of life: “A Poetess Dies,” “Inflamed,” and “Raped.” They are stories that caress the remaining time of a war tale, the longest of his stories, with each one of them. In wars, the days become indistinguishable. Your existence becomes a chance miss by a bullet. Every passing day feels like an extra moment lost in the relentless march of time. You forget to look in the mirror. You search for your face in the faces of others. You bury your solitude in crowded cafes, in fleeting stories, in virtual conversations that find their way between two tearful emojis on your phone. Poetry becomes a lifeline, a means of clinging to life. Love. Flirting. Dating. All of them become shields protecting against the shells of war. Even if these shells don't physically reach you, they penetrate the very core of your being. In times of war, emotions are pushed to their limits. Life sheds its clownish mask and stands exposed in its stark reality, with all its brutality and horror. In these trying times, the stories of our shattered lives rise to the surface.
"The Test of Regret" tells the story of a gifted writer who squanders opportunities, adept at spreading melancholy. He lives in a fragile bubble of his own making, trying to tame the inner demons that haunt him. He is a writer who scatters his words in the alleyways of ancient Damascus; words that represent, on the margins of life, three girls: the sensitive, the passionate, and the violated. These are the stories gently caressed by time, tales woven into the longest war each of them has ever known.