The story begins with a third bullet, and continues until stray missiles fired between Israel and Iran fall on the edges of Iraq. Surveillance cameras, war and thirst. The writer of these diary entries tries to find meaning in living as she stands on the threshold of twenty-five.

Ten o’clock in the evening, a Thursday in 2019. Finally a break from school.

I want to sleep early so I can wake up and have all of Friday to myself. The house is quiet. Sleeping early or staying up late because tomorrow is a holiday, that’s everyone’s plan.

One bullet, two bullets, three.

Who is firing?

ISIS? No, ISIS is far away, somewhere else. I’m here. Things are under control. The British? They left Basra after 2009. The Mahdi Army? Years have passed since 2008. So who is firing? Why am I hearing gunfire?

My drowsiness breaks. I leave the room carefully, avoiding the window, afraid a stray bullet might reach me even inside the house. I step out and see my parents and siblings sitting near the door, frozen, staring at the wall across from them.

Without saying a word, I understand they’re thinking the same thing as me: Who is firing?

I sit with them without breaking the silence. My head rests on my mother’s left shoulder. My little sister sits in her lap and whispers:

“Is that gunfire?”

“Yes, mama. Don’t be afraid. It’s not near us.”

Not near us.

But we’re pressed against the wall, afraid it might be.

Silence.

The gunfire stops. No other sound in the street. No one shouting, no police, no ambulance. No one.

We go to my parents’ room and open the surveillance camera recordings. Three or four men with rifles had fired at the house on the corner of our street. The owner came out and fired back. Then they left, and he returned inside.

Just like that. No “God help you,” no “God forgive you,” no “we’re upset with you,” no curses.

It was almost comical, like someone arriving to offer sweets and then leaving. Except the sweets were bullets.

No one left their house. I imagine all our neighbors were like us, glued to their surveillance screens, shaking their heads in disappointment. The entire neighborhood has cameras. Each house has three to five of them. Maybe it’s excessive, but this is a neighborhood that wants advance notice if someone decides to shoot at a house and drive away.

I look at my father. He nods, sighs, and returns to his computer, writing an article about Basra’s future, a future he hadn’t been sure ten minutes earlier that he would live to see.

My mother resumes combing my sister’s hair before bed. And I return to my room.

Above me are two blankets, something everyone laughs about in our house because this is Basra. Even in winter it’s not that cold. But two blankets feel like protection against any foreign power that might place a weapon behind my head.

I close my eyes. Then open them again, staring at the window.

One bullet, two bullets, three. Three shots are enough to wake me. I always try to wake with the first shot. But I fail.

As a child I was someone who refused to give up sleep. But as gunfire increased, from the British, the Mahdi Army, Jund Al-Sama’, the Iraqi army, and anyone who happened to own a gun between 2003 and 2010, I became the child who wakes with the third bullet.

Even at seventeen, watching neighbors through surveillance cameras, I could never wake before the third shot.

That’s how I settled into the habit: I need to hear three bullets before waking up and hiding.

2025

One missile, two missiles, three.

I wake up Saturday morning, 14 June, at nine. Eid al-Adha visits and obligations are over. Tomorrow regular work resumes.

I open the news.

Israel has bombed Iran.
Iran has bombed Israel.
And Iraq is the space where their missiles travel.

One missile, two missiles, three.

Every province has received its share of rockets that missed their destination: Dhi Qar, Basra, Baghdad, Najaf, Anbar, Diwaniya, Babil.

I laugh at passing memes. One about Muthanna, a province that lacks so many services that it barely appears in the news. Maybe it doesn’t even know there’s a war.

I wish I were there.
And didn’t know about the war either.

My passport sits beside my pillow. It’s valid for several years, I only issued it eight months ago, but it’s useless.

My parents have no passports. Neither does my sister. Not does my younger brother.

Only my middle brother and I have passports because our work requires them.

But they’re useless.

Even if I decided to flee, I couldn’t leave them behind. And if I did, which country would accept me?

I prepare eggs and mushrooms. I use olive oil because regular oil worsens my polycystic ovary syndrome.

Does it even matter?

Maybe the war will start. Maybe I’ll die tomorrow. I’ll die hungry. I’ll die thinking about the gynecologist who insists the solution to my condition is simply marriage.

Or maybe I won’t die. Maybe the bombing will stop, and politicians will kiss each other’s cheeks in some regional reconciliation.

My father sits in his room watching the news. For the first time he doesn’t tell me:

“Don’t worry, it’s just another show.”

He always says that to calm me and calm our entire family.

Trump may not understand American politics, but my father does.

I was waiting for him to say: “Go live your life. Nothing will happen.”

But he doesn’t.

He watches the news closely, following every statement, every missile.

Where did it fall? Who died? What comes next? Is Iraq on the list?

My mother drinks tea and scrolls Facebook news. At one moment she turns to me and says: “They’re bombing the reactor? What will happen to us? Will we die?”

I don’t know.
No one knows.

I remember the series Chernobyl. I remember the cities near the reactor, five days before their internal organs collapsed from radiation.

Will my liver collapse? Will the uterus I’ve been trying to protect since 2014 dissolve?

I ask ChatGPT what happens if my city is near a nuclear reactor.

It tells me to leave.

I say I have nowhere to go.

It advises me to close the windows and stay inside.

I know the advice is useless. I scroll the news. My peers are laughing. Memes everywhere. Iraq’s geographic location has become a joke repeated everywhere, on X, Instagram, TikTok, Telegram.

I close my phone and try to read. I’m reading a novel about a Syrian man imprisoned in Iraq. The story never changes.

Iraq and death.
Iraq and war.
Iraq and no sovereignty.

Iraq.

I remember an old Iraqi football fan shouting “Iraaaaq!” while pounding his head in a viral video. I laugh. Years have passed since that video, but yes. It’s Iraq.

Muqtada al-Sadr says Iraq has nothing to do with this. Militias threaten the US embassy. The United States threatens Iraq. Iran threatens Iraq. Israel threatens Iraq. Iraq threatens Iraq.

And Iraq… I wonder if it knows what’s happening.

Friends message me:

“How is Basra? Is anything happening there? Is there a reactor near you? Did you see the missiles?”

No. I was asleep.

But people on the outskirts of Basra heard them. Some passed above us.

I am about to turn 24 in August. The date seemed very close, yet impossibly far.

I tell myself not to exaggerate.

This isn’t the first time.

One war, two wars, three.

How many wars have I witnessed?

How many times have I been afraid of one of these parties to the conflict?

Many times. The bullets never stop. Neither do the missiles. Yet I remain standing. Between the sides, between the weapons, between the states, there stand Basra, Iraq, and a trembling passport asking the world’s powers:

Please stop using Iraq.

No one listens.

Not even me.

Basra Airport is the only Iraqi airport still operating. Planes keep increasing. Whenever I look up, I see two white lines in the sky, an airplane rushing to escape our borders, heading somewhere missiles do not cross.

The airport operating reassures me.

That means we’re fine… right?

I’m a journalist. I’m not supposed to panic. When anyone asks me, I say nothing serious will happen. I reassure my mother every six hours that we’re fine. But I’m not sure I believe my own words.

The war passes. After a week and a half of coverage, everything stops. A ceasefire. Celebrations in the streets.

The main road near my house was full of worshippers two days ago. Now it’s full of people celebrating. Iranian flags everywhere.

Iran says it won.
Israel says it won.
America says peace won.

And Iraq — once again — is a stage for celebrations, just as it was a stage for missiles.

2026

I left this text for eight months.

I crossed the threshold of twenty-four. In a few months I’ll turn twenty-five.

On Saturday morning, 28 February 2026, Israel bombs Iran again. Iran bombs several neighboring countries. Iraq receives the missiles and sends them. The airspace closes.

I watch the news calmly. I read my novel. I watch a series as if the war has nothing to do with me.

I only wonder whether it will affect my upcoming trip – Should I cancel it? I wonder…  I’ve been excited for it for weeks. Everything is prepared. But war does not wait.

This time my family does not panic.

My father listens to the news while preparing a salad he likes for Ramadan’s iftar. My mother cuts vegetables for soup. My siblings study. And I slowly write this text.

Unlike the first part of this story, I don’t feel time rushing to finish it.

It doesn’t take much for us to get used to a spectacle like this. I think Iraqis adapt quickly by nature. Last year we panicked. We thought life would end. This time we woke up, checked the news, armed ourselves with memes.

Instead of jokes about Muthanna, now it’s Qadisiyah’s turn, the province everyone knows is miserable: no services, no paved roads.

“Cool and peaceful upon Qadisiyah,” people joke.

We have our own way of coping with simple things like the possibility of a third world war.

My generation is exhausted. We no longer want to worry. We spent the beginning of our lives worrying, from birth until now. Anxiety after anxiety. War after war. What’s the point of worrying? If the government isn’t worried, if the army isn’t worried, if the allies aren’t worried, why should we be? What does the people’s anxiety achieve? It doesn’t stop their bombing or the others’.

The day ends with news of Khamenei’s assassination. I know Sunday will bring demonstrations across several Iraqi provinces. Everything will shut down.

I can already imagine the condolence posters before they appear. Words bouncing everywhere:

“Resistance.”
“War.”
“The enemy.”
“Israel.”
“The American enemy.”
“The Gulf.”

Everyone becomes a political analyst. I wonder if these events will push Nouri al-Maliki to withdraw his candidacy. Will he be afraid? But Iraq being the stage of these events doesn’t frighten me anymore.

I only think about my trip. My salary. Will I receive it? Or will the rise of the dollar stop banks from paying salaries?

It doesn’t matter. A numbness has settled over me. The rising dollar doesn’t scare me. A delayed salary doesn’t scare me. A cancelled trip doesn’t scare me. Closed airspace doesn’t scare me.

International isolation. Stray missiles falling on us. Threats of sanctions. Failure to form a government. Nothing matters.

I wonder:

How many times can I leave this text and return to it, to the same event again?