En coherencia con su compromiso con el diálogo intercultural y con la cultura como motor para el cambio social, QM incorpora los relatos finalistas de la última edición del concurso literario Un mar de palabras (A Sea of Words), a su programación editorial mediante una publicación seriada.

La escritora maltesa Nadine Zammit, miembro del jurado en la edición 2025 y ganadora de la anterior en 2023 con su relato “Design of Betrayal”, apadrina esta iniciativa. Sus palabras inspiradoras, se presentan aquí como un gesto simbólico de relevo entre generaciones de creadores y creadoras que, a través de sus relatos, han sabido imaginar el Mediterráneo que queremos:

The Human – When Carried by the Sea

By Hamza Mohammad Tawfiq Al-Halabi
Palestine – Gaza

It had become unbearably dull to hear the footsteps of employees heading off to work in the morning, the murmurs of schoolchildren along the long road, the clanging of metal in the small factories, and the voice of Umm Kulthum from the nearby café.

And it was dull too—my sunrise each morning with the sun, leaving home for my university classes, leaving my consciousness behind, asleep in the house. I used to forget breakfast, as I had the habit of waking up late.
But one morning awakened me in full awareness. It pulled me out of the monotony of my time into a halo of nothingness—or a state of absurdity. I thought then: as long as the human is human in essence, and race or ideology is merely incidental to the human being, how can the incidental override the essence? How can I erase the existence of others for the sake of a transient thought in my head?
I had to realize, then, that all a human needs today is simply another human being—because that is the one truth we need not fight for. It is the lasting common ground between all people.

I grew up, along with my family, in a small town on the shore of the Mediterranean Sea. The city looked like an old creature, worn down by time, resisting aging with residents full of youthful energy and childhood dreams—even though everything in it aged quickly.
We lived near the shore, but we couldn’t see it.
The sea, that endless blue being, had become a boundary—not a dream.
A barrier of wire, not a mirror for the sky.

My father always instilled in us the love of people—all people. He used to say:
«My son, if the children of Gaza, Tel Aviv, Beirut, and Naples gathered in one square and played together, no one would need to write a peace treaty.»

I didn’t understand him then. But on that strange morning I mentioned, I realized that play has an echo—just like war—but it doesn’t frighten.

I grew up, and the sea grew with me. I used to see it as closer, more intimate when I was young, but it began to drift away.
The distance between me and it was not measured in meters, but in fear—in small losses piled on top of each other, like ancient stones in the city’s old wall.

Our house had an old wooden door that opened onto a narrow alley, and my father would open it every morning, murmuring verses from the Qur’an.
I would ask him: “Why do you always mumble when you open the door?” He’d say:
“So only peace enters with us.”
I used to think he exaggerated, but now I understand. Anyone who wants to survive here must negotiate with the door every morning, convincing it not to open onto a bullet or a shell.

At fourteen, I saw my first friend killed. His name was Yasser, and he resembled me in everything—even in his small dreams. He wanted to become a football player, to play for a European club and send us videos from green stadiums.
But instead of watching his goals, we watched his funeral.

I don’t remember how I cried. All I remember is that I didn’t speak for days, as if my voice had declared mourning. From that moment, two voices began to live inside me:
One wanted to scream, to take revenge, to destroy everything.
The other wanted to walk against the fire—to plant something that could not burn.
These two forces battled within me for years.

One night, I spoke with a university professor who taught us “international conflicts.” I had asked him:
“Can justice be achieved without revenge?”
He said:
“Justice is not revenge on the killer—it is safety for those who remain.”

That sentence opened a window in my head. I began to see the world differently. Everyone who had been ‘against me’ was no longer an enemy—but another victim of a false narrative.

I decided to write. Not as a great writer, but as someone trying to understand. I began to record my reflections:
Why do we fear difference?
How can one idea kill?
And does writing save—or merely delay the explosion?

At university, I met a girl named Mariam. She studied French literature and dreamed of translating and working in peace organizations. She believed that words could stop a bullet—if written at the right time and place.
She once said to me, as we looked at the sea through the bars:
“You know? This same sea touches Italy and Spain and Turkey… Do you think it knows it has to take a side in the war?”

I laughed then, but she didn’t smile. She truly believed the sea was the first teacher of peace; it doesn’t fight those who cross it, but carries them all. That vastness was what she missed here.

In a joint university project, we began writing letters to students from other Mediterranean universities—from Athens, Tangier, Marseille. We exchanged stories and music. We began to discover that we live with the same anxiety, asking the same questions:
What does it mean to be from this region?
Are we destined to carry the legacy of wars to our children?
Or can we truly break the chain?

One of those students was named Michel, from Marseille. He wrote to me once:
“When I hear about Gaza, I think of fear. But when I read your letters, I think of hope. You’re creating a new image of the city—an image that resembles all of us.”

Those words were enough to change the course of my studies. I shifted from political science to cultural anthropology. I began to believe that studying humans as humans—before identities and flags—is the real key to peace.

My father died in the last aggression. He had gone out to buy bread.
His funeral was quiet, just as he always liked. The imam said a word I will never forget:
“He believed that death should not create more enemies—but more reasons to live.”

Months later, I traveled on a scholarship to Barcelona.
There, for the first time, I felt that the sea is the same here as it is there—
but the people were different only because they were allowed to be different without fear.
I participated in a workshop on “narrative-making for peace” and read my first text about Gaza—my voice trembling, but the applause long.
A Moroccan girl stood after me and said:
“Peace doesn’t need treaties—it needs stories. Stories like this raise children who won’t pick up guns.”

In Barcelona, everything changed. Not because the city was perfect, but because it gave me what I had been denied: the right to quiet.

At one literary gathering, a Greek writer said to me:
“Peace is not forgetting the war, but refusing to repeat it.”
That was when I felt I had found the answer I’d been searching for.
Peace is not weakness—but the strongest form of resistance.

Now, I return to Gaza with a new message. I won’t promise to change the world, but I promise to tell everyone I meet:
“We don’t just live in Gaza. We are born here every day.
And we must choose each time: to be the beginning of a new story—or the repetition of an old one.”
And I have chosen to be a new story.

The Island That Is Not on the Maps

Por Aicha Saïd Larabi
Argelia / España

Segundo premio en el certamen literario A Sea of Words 2025

Nadie supo decirme dónde estaba. Ni el piloto del ferry, ni la mujer del mostrador de la estación marítima en Marsella. “Es una isla… ¿cómo decirlo?”, me dijo un joven tunecino en el puerto, mientras se encendía un cigarro con las manos temblorosas. “Una isla que a veces se encuentra solo si la necesitas.”

Y yo la necesitaba.

Me llamo Noura. Nací en Argel, pero he vivido casi toda mi vida en Madrid. Llevo más tiempo hablando español que árabe, pero cuando sueño, todavía lo hago en la voz de mi abuela. La escucho entre susurros, como cuando me recitaba refranes a la hora de la siesta:

“Li ma ʿandūsh el-kbār, ychrihū.”

(Quien no tiene mayores, que los compre)

Nunca entendí del todo su significado hasta que me faltó.

Estudio Traducción e Interpretación. Siempre supe que quería estar entre lenguas, entre mundos. De pequeña, me llamaban “la puente” en casa. Cuando discutían mis padres, yo traducía emociones, no palabras. A veces bastaba con una mirada, una mano en el hombro, una frase dicha en el tono exacto. Más adelante supe que eso tenía un nombre: mediación cultural. Y me prometí que haría de esa habilidad una vocación.

Ese verano, antes de comenzar unas prácticas en un hospital de la costa —donde trabajaría como intérprete para pacientes migrantes—, decidí aceptar una invitación que no aparecía en ningún correo oficial, ni en las redes sociales, ni en las convocatorias académicas. Llegó como un susurro digital, en un foro de jóvenes mediterráneos, entre hilos de poesía, activismo y fragmentos de canciones en varias lenguas.

El mensaje era breve, casi críptico:

“Queremos construir algo nuevo.

Si sabes traducir, si sabes escuchar, te necesitamos.

29 de junio. Marsella. Dársena C.

Lleva solo lo esencial. Lo demás lo pondremos entre todos.”

Pensé que era un experimento. Una especie de performance colectiva, tal vez. Pero había algo en esas palabras que me tocaba una fibra profunda. Traducir. Escuchar. Construir. Parecían verbos escritos para mí. Así que fui.

La víspera del viaje, preparé una mochila con lo mínimo: ropa ligera, una libreta, mi viejo diccionario de árabe dialectal, una grabadora de voz y un paquete de dátiles que mi madre me había mandado por si “en algún sitio te falta azúcar, hija”. No le conté a nadie el destino exacto. A veces, lo más importante es lo que no se puede explicar sin que parezca locura.

Marsella olía a sal, alquitrán y orégano. En la dársena C había más personas como yo: jóvenes con mochilas y rostros atentos. Nadie hablaba en voz alta. Algunos compartían fruta, otros escribían en sus móviles. Había una tensión extraña en el aire: no era miedo, era expectativa. Como si supiéramos, sin saberlo del todo, que estábamos a punto de entrar en otro mundo.

El barco llegó sin bandera. Un velero de madera clara, con el casco pintado de azul y el nombre borrado. Nadie pidió billetes. Solo un saludo sencillo, un gesto con la mano: “ʿAla r-raḥba w s-saʿa.”

Fueron las primeras palabras en árabe que oí en días. Me atraparon al instante.

Subimos en silencio. Las velas se desplegaron con un crujido suave, y pronto la costa quedó atrás, tragada por una bruma espesa como la harina. Durante horas, no hablamos. Me senté junto a una chica que leía algo en francés. Tenía los ojos delineados con kohl y los labios partidos. Me ofreció una mandarina y, sin decir palabra, compartimos los gajos como si nos conociéramos de antes.

No sé cuánto tiempo pasó. Perdí la noción del tiempo. En el mar, el tiempo es otra cosa: no hay minutos, solo luz, sombra, silencio y oleaje.

Entonces la vi.

La isla apareció como surgen los recuerdos en mitad de la noche: sin avisar. Una curva de tierra cubierta de verde, con casas de piedra y caminos estrechos. No había muelles ni grúas, ni rastro de construcciones modernas. Solo una playa de arena gruesa y barcas varadas. En la colina más alta, ondeaba una tela cosida con retazos de distintas banderas. Una forma de decir: todos y ninguno.

Desembarcamos entre risas y abrazos. Nadie preguntó nombres ni nacionalidades. Nos dieron fruta, agua de azahar, y nos invitaron a sentarnos en círculo. Una mujer joven, con el pelo cubierto por un pañuelo azul celeste, nos habló en varias lenguas: árabe, francés, español, luego italiano, y algo que sonaba a albanés.

—Aquí no traducimos todo. Aquí escuchamos lo que podemos, y lo que no, lo sentimos. Esta isla no está en los mapas. No por error, sino por decisión. Aquí venimos a imaginar lo que no se nos permite imaginar en nuestras orillas. Aquí venimos a construir lo que no cabe en los discursos oficiales.

Yo no entendía del todo qué era ese lugar. Pero sí sabía una cosa: había encontrado algo más que un destino. Había llegado a un espacio donde mi identidad dejaba de ser problema para convertirse en puente. Donde mi forma de hablar, de escuchar, de moverme entre culturas, no era una rareza ni una carga, sino una clave.

Me sentí en casa. Por primera vez en mucho tiempo.

2. La isla

La llaman Al-Mutawassiṭa. “La del medio”.

Pero otros la llaman Isla Mar, Isoletta, l’Île du Possible.

Nadie logró ponerse de acuerdo, y al final eso fue lo más bonito. En cada lengua suena diferente, pero todas significan lo mismo: un intento de futuro.

El acuerdo fue este: aquí cada quien puede llamar a la isla como quiera, siempre que al hacerlo no cierre una puerta, sino que abra una. Ese fue uno de los primeros aprendizajes: que el lenguaje no es solo traducción, sino posibilidad.

Llegué al amanecer. El cielo estaba teñido de rosa, y el aire olía a pan recién hecho y sal. Las casas eran construcciones ligeras, hechas con madera reciclada, velas de barcos antiguos, lonas pintadas con versos en múltiples idiomas: poesía amazigh junto a grafitis griegos, proverbios tunecinos sobre lienzos que antes fueron tiendas de campaña. No había banderas, ni fronteras. Nadie pedía documentos. El primer cartel que vi decía:

“Aquí solo hay primeras oportunidades”

Había algo radical en esa frase. Algo que desafiaba todo lo que conocía del mundo más allá de la costa. Aquí no se preguntaba de dónde venías, sino qué querías construir. Aquí nadie te reducía a tu país, tu pasaporte o tu idioma. La isla no era un refugio. Era una semilla.

En la isla vivíamos unos cuarenta. La mayoría teníamos entre veinte y treinta años. Veníamos de todas partes: Siria, Grecia, Egipto, Marruecos, España, Palestina, Líbano, Túnez. Había quien había cruzado el mar a nado, quien había sobrevivido a campos de detención, quien venía de barrios periféricos donde nunca llega el noticiero, ni la promesa de un futuro. Yo venía de una sala de traducción universitaria, con mis auriculares, mis diccionarios y mis dudas. ¿Qué podía aportar yo, con mis textos subrayados y mi acento mestizo?

Al principio, no sabía dónde colocarme. Mientras unos arreglaban redes de pesca o cocinaban para todos, otros construían espacios comunes para talleres, debates, momentos de silencio. Cada quien ofrecía lo que sabía hacer, y lo hacía desde un lugar de entrega, no de obligación.

Mi trabajo era simple y complejo a la vez: mediar. Traducir cuando no bastaban las palabras. Escuchar cuando la historia era demasiado pesada para contarla sola. A veces, ser puente. A veces, ser silencio.

Un día, Hiba —una joven siria que hablaba un árabe que yo apenas entendía por mi falta de práctica— se acercó a mí llorando. Quería contar algo, pero las palabras se le escapaban, se le enredaban en los labios. Me miró con los ojos grandes, húmedos, y me dijo solo una frase:

—No me traduzcas. Solo quédate.

Entendí entonces que a veces la mediación no necesita de un idioma compartido, sino de una presencia que no juzga. Esa tarde me senté a su lado y compartimos un cuaderno. Ella dibujó su ciudad, su casa rota. Yo traduje sus imágenes en preguntas para el círculo del día siguiente. No dije que eran suyas. Solo lancé las palabras al centro y observé cómo otros respondían desde su propia experiencia.

La isla funcionaba así. Cada día se abría con un desayuno colectivo —pan plano, dátiles, queso blanco, café espeso— y una asamblea. Se hablaba en muchas lenguas, a veces con intérpretes improvisados, a veces mezclando frases a trozos. El idioma común era el deseo de entender. Nadie ridiculizaba a nadie por no pronunciar bien. Nadie corregía desde arriba. Aprendíamos al andar.

Poco a poco, fui encontrando mi lugar. Ayudaba a traducir textos para el archivo colectivo que estábamos creando: una especie de memoria viva del Mediterráneo, contada desde abajo.

Relatos, canciones, cartas no enviadas. Y también facilitaba diálogos entre quienes no se atrevían a hablar directamente por miedo, vergüenza o dolor.

En una isla sin instituciones, sin reglas escritas, mi papel era el de dar forma a los puentes invisibles: evitar malentendidos antes de que crecieran, traducir intenciones además de palabras, recordar que detrás de cada idioma hay una historia.

Descubrí que ser mediadora no era solo mi futuro profesional. Era, de algún modo, mi forma de estar en el mundo. No como alguien neutral —porque nadie lo es—, sino como alguien que acepta el conflicto como parte del encuentro, y el error como parte de la traducción.

3. El sueño

Durante semanas, creímos que habíamos logrado algo imposible.

Compartíamos la comida en mesas circulares, hechas con maderas de distintos colores que representaban nuestras lenguas. Cocinábamos a turnos: couscous, moussaka, tortilla de patatas, shakshuka, dolmas, harira. Alguien siempre traía música: un laúd, un darbuka, un altavoz con canciones de la infancia. Cantábamos en las cinco lenguas que más sonaban en la isla, y nadie se molestaba si no entendía del todo.

Layla, una chica siria, pintaba murales con cada nueva historia que llegaba. Decía que las paredes necesitaban memoria. Yannis, griego, propuso formas de ahorrar agua y adaptarnos al ritmo del sol. Fatima, marroquí, enseñó a hacer jabón con aceite usado. Sami, palestino, organizó una pequeña biblioteca: cada libro tenía una historia de cómo había llegado allí.

Algunos días simplemente nos sentábamos al borde del mar a respirar. Otros días discutíamos durante horas sobre cómo repartir mejor la pesca o cómo anotar decisiones comunes. Había errores, por supuesto. Y también cansancio. Pero nadie lo usaba contra los demás. Éramos aprendices de comunidad.

No era una utopía. Pero se parecía.

Era un ensayo. Un boceto de lo que podría ser un mundo menos roto. Y por un tiempo, bastaba con eso.

4. Las grietas

Pero un día llegó una discusión.

Pequeña. Casi absurda.

Adam —un chico tunecino criado en Italia— propuso usar solo el francés en las asambleas. “Por eficiencia”, dijo. Algunos asentían. Otros fruncieron el ceño. “¿Y por qué no el árabe?”, murmuró Layla. “¿Y el inglés?”, dijo Yannis. “¿Por qué no cada uno en su idioma y traducimos juntos?”, añadí yo, intentando calmar las aguas.

Pero ya era tarde. Se habían abierto bandos invisibles. Murmullos en las cocinas, silencios en los encuentros. Nadie lo decía en voz alta, pero algo se había roto: la confianza en que todos queríamos lo mismo.

Porque la lengua no era el problema. Era lo que cada lengua traía: jerarquías, memorias coloniales, exclusiones pasadas. El francés como imposición. El árabe como herida. El inglés como salvavidas global. Las lenguas no eran neutras. Y nosotros, tampoco.

Yo me sentí impotente. Por más que tradujera las palabras, no podía traducir los miedos, los resentimientos, las historias enterradas. La traducción no era suficiente. A veces era incluso una trampa.

Una noche, alguien pintó un muro en blanco. Nada más. Solo blanco. Fue Layla. Cuando le preguntamos, dijo:

—A veces el silencio también es un idioma.

Y se marchó caminando hacia el mar, sin mirar atrás.

5. La noche de las lenguas

No sabíamos cómo continuar. Los debates se habían vuelto tensos. Las comidas, más silenciosas. Algo esencial se nos escapaba entre las manos. Así que propuse algo: 

—¿Y si hacemos una noche de lenguas? —dije una mañana—. Una velada en la que cada persona hable en su lengua materna. Sin filtros. Sin traducción. Solo habla. Y los demás… escuchan.

Al principio, nadie entendía la idea. “¿Y si no entendemos nada?” “¿Qué sentido tiene?” “¿Escuchar para qué?”

Pero luego, uno a uno, fueron aceptando. Tal vez porque ya no sabíamos qué más intentar.

Esa noche encendimos velas por todo el círculo central. Nadie tenía que traducir. Solo contar.

Una por una, las voces llenaron el aire. Escuchamos poemas en tamazight, cuentos en árabe darija, nanas en hebreo, historias familiares en italiano del sur, letanías en griego, suspiros en francés, refranes en español de barrio. Nadie entendía todo. Pero todos sentíamos algo. Era como si, en ese desconcierto compartido, encontráramos una forma más profunda de comprendernos.

Yo hablé en árabe. Por primera vez en mucho tiempo, sin miedo.

أنا ابنة ضفتين، ولغةٌ بين لغتين-

(Soy hija de dos orillas, y una lengua entre dos lenguas.)

Alguien lloró. Alguien aplaudió.

Alguien simplemente cerró los ojos. 

Y entendí que, por fin, habíamos empezado a escucharnos.

6. ¿Y ahora?

La isla sigue ahí. Aunque no esté en los mapas. Aunque haya días en los que parezca deshacerse. Sigue el mar. Sigue la juventud. Sigue la necesidad de imaginar otro Mediterráneo.

A veces vuelven las tensiones. Las diferencias. Pero ya no las tememos tanto. Porque aprendimos que el conflicto no es el final, sino una pregunta. Y que el idioma, cuando se escucha con el corazón, no necesita ser comprendido para ser sentido.

Layla pintó de nuevo aquel muro en blanco. Esta vez lo cubrió con manos: huellas de pintura de todos los que habíamos hablado en la noche de las lenguas. Sobre ellas escribió, en árabe:

«كل لغة طريق. وكل طريق يحتاج إلى جسر»

(Cada lengua es un camino. Y cada camino necesita un puente.)

Yo volveré. Aunque viva lejos.

Cada vez que traduzco una historia en el hospital, cada vez que alguien me dice “no sé cómo decirlo”, recuerdo que mi trabajo no es solo traducir. Es tejer. Unir. Escuchar lo que no se dice.

Y, sobre todo, imaginar lo que aún no existe.

La isla no está en los mapas. Pero habita en cada intento de comprender. Y en cada historia que se atreve a cruzar el mar.

Aicha Saïd Larabi (Argelia, 2004) creció en España desde los tres años. Actualmente cursa estudios de Árabe e Islam en la Universidad de Alicante. Escribe desde la infancia y ha participado en diversos concursos escolares, donde comenzó a desarrollar una voz propia marcada por su interés por las lenguas, la memoria y la identidad. Estas inquietudes atraviesan también su escritura, en la que confluyen sus múltiples referentes culturales. “La isla que no está en los mapas” es su primera obra finalista en un certamen literario oficial.

Mireia Estrada, filóloga, gestora cultural y miembro del jurado de A Sea of Words 2025

Partition

By Gaja Smilevska
Macedonia del Norte

*Text original escrito en inglés

He left me on the shore, my rugged sailor man, with his wind-weathered hair and eyes as white as sand. Pulled up his sails and set off.

He left, but made good on his promise- a glimpse of the world in my hand.

It was a five year travel, or maybe five hundred, or more. Along the coast we set off, brushed by Sidon and Tyre. Not alone, but a fleet- a procession of souls speaking tongues long since buried. Onwards we ferried, in tandem on a road well-known.

Backwards in time or forward, no map could show.

What little borders we knew got away from us. Desiccation upon flood upon boiling sky, its coastline bending to thoughts of mother earth with each passing tide.

My sailor man had two faces, one front facing and one on his back. Saw each voyage twice over. Every beginning his end, each voyage his homecoming.

For a few days each year, we’d stop at a port. Tied our ships with ropes tattered and worn, and dried off our salt-soaked backs. Saw cities worth living and dying in twice over. But longed yet to continue our tracks. We learned the language, walked the roads, left parts of us in some small corner. In time, we’d take to the sea, fall victim to the beck and call of our ship and leave.

The real fun, said my sailor man, waited for us further down. He would not tell me what, nor where, merely promised my listening would do well. In the night, every shape was new. Never a wave similar to any other two.

There was waiting, too. Most of life is. At times the wind left us wanting, waiting for a blow. Our sails went ghostly still and we hovered. We hovered for a while, ships came to a crawl as the waves danced beneath us. A largo performed for aeons before, the push and pull of the moon and seas, two mothers cradling their children on the open waters. We sat above remnants of maritime republics sleeping deep below.

We were the only light for miles. Some sort of offering for some sort of contact, reaching out to lands now fallow.

But the past did not gleam back.

Further down, we wove past a patch of floating men. Their hands held upwards, hope still laying with them in eternal rest. Their ships abandoned, homes left standing in their hearts, awash with no world to call their own. They had made a house in our sea. How gently she held the ships and bodies of martyrs, restful in the depths for as long as need be.

Our media-terrania, sea between two lands. Once roman lake, now common men’s grave.

And then we felt it. Further east, from all corners the smell carried. The smell of olives, then of steel. Smelling of whatever fire the breeze had not parried.

In our last days, a time future-passed, we came upon a stage. A cerulean blue disc spanning miles upon miles. Waves lapped at its edges, corners sea-glass smooth from years of touch. Our ships could not clear it so we walked on to the center, the transparent marble offering up a clear view of the sea bed below us. We saw every rock and cliff leagues underneath, specks in the deep reflecting the constellations high above us. A high fidelity map, as above so below.

We followed my sailor man onward, one head craned to the sky, the other planted down low.

In its center, we met a tall man. His head bore the sun of Egypt, left hand from Piraneus, the other Dubrovnik. He knew of no war nor border of cities, but he knew of our home. His home, an empire burned down and remade in all our image. I did not understand when he spoke But it sounded like you, like me. Like hands held tight from across the sea. 

He knew of us, of what we used to be. We took more than was there, more than there ever could be. A killer thirst in the middle of ocean waters.

And even with our riches, our salt and steel and land in the hull, the sea thrashed and scoured none the wiser to our power. And our ships were too heavy with our gold and our spice, and for certain none of it would we throw overboard, we need not even think twice. And never did we part from it. 

And so we looked again, made out the rusted metal from the rock below us. In place of shell or corral, we saw drones- missiles, torpedoes, shelling of every flavour. Gunpowdered city-killers that lay sleeping in the depth.

And so we understood, we were too late for any palaver. For you may not bargain with time nor the sea. No city nor steel nor rock, nor you and I, will stand the test of time. In two blinks time, she will rise. She will fill up our homes and welcome us back. Swallow us dead with the tides.

And the fire we lit will no longer burn. Homes will be extinguished, though the fires have long since been their only inhabitant.

We left the sphere. We could not stay. What merit would there be in standing on solid ground when all the world around had no time to spare. The sea could not make our peace for us, that is not her mission. We bid the tall man goodbye and reeled up our anchor, there was no difference between us and them, between us and our world. We could not be its partition.

I understood then, my sailor man’s words. The world in my hand is a heavy burden.

The time for war had already passed.

And it cannot be too late, our shores span the same sea. The distance between you and me is negligible. A ship or shore away. What fire touches you will soon reach me.

With his wind-weathered hair and eyes pale as glass, my sailor man hoisted his white flag topmast.

Gaja Smilevska (Macedonia del Norte) es una artista visual, ilustradora y autora de cómic afincada en Skopie. Su trabajo ha sido presentado en portadas de libros, exposiciones internacionales y festivales de arte y cómic. Paralelamente a su trayectoria artística, es graduada en Psicología y participa activamente como voluntaria en distintos festivales culturales. Su práctica creativa combina sensibilidad visual, narrativa e interés por las dinámicas humanas y sociales

Here Begins Tomorrow

Sandra Sami
Tunisia

Ganadora accésit ALECSO

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There was no time. No sunrise, no sunset, no hourglass running out. Only a suspended blueness, like a ceiling in a forgotten room. A scent of saltiness mingled with a distant sound, as if someone was crying underwater. The place resembled the beginning of creation, or its end. On the unknown shore, ancient stones crumbled slowly as if breathing, and dry olive branches sprouted over the wreckage of a wooden boat. From afar, specters of exhausted cities appeared: Beirut with its flames, Sfax with its heaviness, Gaza with its suppressed voice, and Athens with its wounds.

A faint sound began to seep through, as if something was preparing to reveal itself after centuries of silence. The water trembled, and the scent of memory wafted. In the sound was something of nostalgia, something of reproach, and something of anger. The sea sang, or judged, or pleaded: «I have seen you all.» Thus it spoke, with a deep, raspy voice like dry rocks: «I carried your ships upon my waves, and I buried those of you who did not return. I witnessed your promises sink, one after another. You sailed upon me with sails of nostalgia, longing, and hope. I let you build cities, burn them, and then cry over their ashes.»

The stones on the shore trembled as if afraid to remember. Everything was still, except memory. Something moved beneath the surface of the water, like a living creature slowly extending its cold limbs, and saying: «I am he upon whose chest the Phoenicians, the Greeks, and dreamers from all directions walked. I was the mirror of cities before they knew names, I was the melody of the poem before it knew language. I carried the markets of Carthage, the sails of Granada, and ships laden with fear and hope, leaving and not returning. I address those who carry tomorrow in their hearts. Remember that you were born from civilizations that dreamed, spoke, and wrote about love in their letters. Civilizations that were not afraid of the word, and did not confuse freedom with chaos. When did the homeland become merely a station for departure? And are homelands built from silence? Why do I see you today fleeing aimlessly?»

It repeated with a voice overcome by reproach: «O lost ones between a screen and borders, and those sitting on the seats of oblivion, the dream is not borrowed, but written when you realize that you are the first page in the book of the future.»

Silence suddenly fell, and the features of a strange island appeared in the heart of the Mediterranean. On it were four young people from different regions. It was not an island seen on maps, nor mentioned in sailors’ logs. It was at a convergence point that geographers had not defined, where the wind coming from Tangier collided with the groan of the Levant, and the saltiness from Sicily intersected with the warmth of the ports of Jaffa. In the middle of the island, an inverted hourglass. And on the shore, an ancient, cracked bottle rolled gently, approaching the rock. Suddenly, the island’s winds stirred to awaken the sleepers.

Leila was the first to open her eyes. Saltwater on her lips, and damp paper in her left hand. Her black hair was pulled back, and her wide hazel eyes were like windows overlooking Beirut. She rose slowly, taking her first steps while contemplating the island as if trying to remember something she hadn’t yet lived.

Adam followed, opening his eyes to the sound of the sea. His right hand was stained with ink, and his face was still like the alleys of Gaza after the rain. He stood, staring at the sand for a long time, as if seeing in it a map he didn’t yet know how to read.

On the other side, Kira rose without a sound. Her eyes were blue like fresh water, with a gleam of Greek light. In them was something of Athens, and something of the silence of temples. She looked at the bottle wedged between the stones and contemplated it without touching it. 

Yassin was the last. His features were Tunisian, and the dream in his heart reached all homelands. He rose in one swift motion, looked at the three, then at the sky, then at the hourglass in the middle of the island. He said nothing. He took a deep breath and began to walk towards the only shadow in the place.

They were four, brought together by a place they didn’t know. They stood in the middle of the island where the ground was flatter. Adam came forward, head slightly bowed, his eyes slowly moving between the rocks and the faces, as if trying to understand the place through them. As for Yassin, he remained standing to the side for a few moments, then approached them with two clear steps, placed his hand on a low stone next to him, and broke the silence, saying: «Do you know this place?»

Kira didn’t lift her head; she was intently watching the sand fall in the hourglass. Then she said: «It’s clear there’s limited time, and if there wasn’t a purpose, this hourglass wouldn’t be here.»

Adam said with a reserved tone: «Perhaps we shouldn’t rush to conclusions. I think this place is too big to understand quickly.»

Leila looked at the paper in her hand, then raised her eyes to them and said calmly: «Even if we don’t understand the reason yet, our presence here isn’t in vain. I feel there’s a link between us, even if we haven’t seen it yet.»

Yassin smiled slightly sarcastically and said: «A feeling? I don’t reject the idea, but can we base our steps on mere feeling? The sea stretches around us, and there’s no clear exit. If we don’t do something, we’ll remain trapped.»

Kira, crossing her arms, said: «What exactly do you want to do? We have no information, no map, no guide. All we know is that we are strangers gathered in an unknown place.»

Adam suddenly replied, without changing his tone: «And that alone is enough to separate us. In our countries, we haven’t agreed, and we haven’t overcome our differences, so how can we do it here?» A moment of silence ensued, during which eyes seemed strained and hearts reserved. Leila, her voice sounding firmer, said: «But we are here, and no one chose who the other would be. Perhaps this is the real test, to come together without carrying our past with us as a chain.»

Yassin, looking towards the sea, said: «Perhaps, but there’s no point in standing like this. Let’s split up for a bit and look for any clue, sign, or exit.» Adam nodded in agreement. Kira looked at them all, then said in a calm tone: «Alright, but don’t go too far.» They dispersed quietly, each heading in a different direction on the island, and the hourglass continued to bleed slowly.

The sun was at its zenith, and the island stretched before them like an unwritten page. They walked in four different directions, each searching for something they didn’t know. Leila walked along a crumbling stone wall, from whose cracks grew small plants resembling those she used to see at the edges of Beirut’s alleys. She wasn’t afraid of silence, but of its fullness with what remained unsaid. She stopped before an old stone carving, half-erased, the other half resembling a sentence she once began in a poetry notebook but never finished. She placed her hand on the stone and closed her eyes. She remembered the first time she stood on a school platform, and her voice didn’t come out. Beirut, which she loved with words, and feared with sound. She dreamed of creating a place where people weren’t afraid to listen to each other. To return letters to the streets, and to homes. She extended her hand to the paper she carried and read from it in a trembling voice: «I am the homeland that resides within you, so speak me so that I may not die.»

Adam headed towards the coast, where the sea met the sand. He sat on a smooth rock and dragged his palm through the water. He looked at his face and didn’t recognize it, as if he had returned from a city that didn’t resemble him. He remembered Gaza as he knew it: the narrow alleys, the school walls that had absorbed the screams of children, and the sky that was always clear. He took a small piece of charcoal from his pocket, which he kept as a memento from his burned home. In front of him, on the stone, he began to draw a line, then an arch, then a window. He imagined his house with a balcony overlooking the sea. The greatest challenge in his life was not to let pain turn into blind rage and to keep art alive within himself.

As for Yassin, he made his way through the pine trees with steady steps that contained as much tension as determination. The island’s soil beneath his feet reminded him of his childhood fields in Sfax, where he used to run after his father during the olive harvest season. He stopped in front of a tall tree, then sat beside it to think. He used to believe that freedom was taken, but now he knew it was built. He took a small piece of wood he was carrying from his bag, along with a carving blade, and began to carve the wood.

And Kira walked in silence, looking at the island’s details as if reading a book in an ancient language. She passed by wavy columns, similar to those she used to see in Athens, when she would sit for hours in front of the National Museum contemplating the statues. She found a stone circle carved into the ground, stood in its center, and took an old photograph from her pocket. The photo was of a woman standing on a beach, her face familiar. Kira had always wondered if this woman was her grandmother, who had disappeared under mysterious circumstances during a trip to the south. Kira wondered: «What if I tried to start anew?» At that moment, light began to seep into the edges of the circle, as if the earth had responded to her question.

Night began to fall quietly on the island. The four returned to the meeting point. They hadn’t agreed, and no one was late. They sat on the ground without order, their faces turned towards the sea, their shoulders close enough for words to begin to appear. 

Kira, rubbing her palms as if trying to remove something stuck, said: «Do you know what pains me? That most of my generation in Athens lives between two ideas that don’t meet, between the glory of the past and the helplessness of the present. They talk about philosophy and democracy, but we can barely talk about ourselves without fear of ridicule or being accused of superficiality.»

Yassin nodded and said: «In Tunisia, we have freedom, but we don’t know what to do with it. It’s like a door that suddenly opened onto a void. Everyone shouts, and no one listens. We change governments, fill the streets, and then return to our homes with no clear purpose.» 

Leila, with a tone that carried a hint of weariness, said: «And in Beirut, we learned to suppress more than we say. The word there is a weapon, not a tool for dialogue. We dream, yes, but in a low voice, so as not to awaken sleeping wounds. We are a people who love life, but we live it cautiously.»

Adam added, tracing with his fingers on the sand: «As for us in Gaza, life is not something we live, but something we cling to. Everything we own is fragile, temporary, even dreams. To dream in Gaza is to defy reality day by day. We don’t just want to die, we want to live as we wish.»

A slight silence fell, as if each of them was confronting what their heart was filled with longing. Kira moved slightly to the front of the circle and said, wiping her knees: «Alright, if we know what we don’t want, let’s try to draw what we do want. How do we imagine this region?» 

Yassin rose and began walking slowly around the circle, saying: «The most important thing we need today is for someone to listen to us. The youth in our region do not lack awareness or desire, but their voices are marginalized and cut off before they are understood.» 

Adam added: «I want public spaces to be planted with art, not barriers. I dream that we teach children to draw as we teach them letters. That the streets become a mirror of hope.» Then he turned to the three and asked: «What if every city in the Mediterranean carried on its walls the stories of its youth? What if art became the language of the people, not exclusive to halls?»

Leila smiled and said, straightening her posture: «I dream that every young person has a voice that is heard, one that doesn’t need a license or permission. To restore the word to its place, as a tool for life.» She looked at Kira and asked: «And you? What do you see?» 

Kira replied, fiddling with a lock of her hair: «I dream of a society that doesn’t tell us who we are, but asks us who we want to be, and gives us the opportunity to answer.» She added: «Education, art, participation, and dialogue are the foundations of societies.» 

Yassin approached the center and, pointing to their footprints on the sand, said: «What we need is one simple, yet shared project. We need a network of small, connected, and cooperative actions.»

Leila asked, as if thinking aloud: «Can a dream be built between four different directions? And is will alone enough?»

Adam replied: «Perhaps not enough, but will is what brings us here. And if it weren’t enough, we wouldn’t have gathered.»

Yassin stood up, looked at the three, and said firmly: «We need a map that brings us together, a map built on values and actions.» Kira immediately said, rising with him: «Let’s draw it now with our hands on this ground. Let’s leave what we have.»

Leila moved to the center of the circle, extended her hand to the paper she had carried throughout the journey, and placed it firmly on the sand. Adam came, placed the piece of charcoal beside it. And Yassin took out the piece of wood he had carved on his journey and leaned it against a still stone at the edge. As for Kira, she opened the photograph, looked at it for a moment, then placed it on the sand without hesitation.

The four stood for a moment looking at what they had done, then Yassin said quietly: «Let’s try to start now.» They approached the hourglass together, extended their hands, and turned it over at once.

A light breeze blew from the direction of the sea, and a faint light emerged from the sand, flowing like a thread, heading towards a stone wall on the opposite side. A new inscription formed on it, which hadn’t been there moments before, as if the island had recorded its first line. And from the depths of the island, they heard a faint sound resembling a call. Adam, looking at the light that began to emerge from the ground, said: «I think something has already begun.»

When the four turned the hourglass, time seemed to breathe for the first time. The light on the island changed, and from the center of the circle, a line of faint glow extended until it reached a rocky wall, which split silently. Behind it, a narrow passage pulsated with a light resembling the first dawn. They entered the passage without a word. Inside, a circular hall appeared with a stone platform in its center. They looked at each other and realized there was one final price, and that only one should remain. 

The hesitation didn’t last long. Kira advanced with steady steps, looked at them, and then said: «I found what I was looking for, this circle is my place.» They wanted to object, but she smiled and said: «He who stays does not retreat. And he who leaves must carry something unforgettable.» She placed the photograph she was carrying in the middle of the platform, then sat on the ground quietly. At the same moment, a wall behind them split, and a faint light flowed from it, and a breeze carrying something from the other world. The three left, turning back every moment. And in the depths of the hall, Kira sat, watching the light stream in.

Each of them woke up in a different time, not carrying all the answers, but the spark of change. Each of them returned to their city looking for a small space to plant a dream. Leila returned to Beirut with great hope in her eyes. She rented a spacious room above a popular café, where she gathered scattered chairs, tables, and a number of empty notebooks. She invited the youth of the neighborhood and started a simple project with them: reading and writing sessions held every Thursday evening. Each session began with a question and ended with an idea, and in between, spaces for confession, discussion, and a dream written between the lines grew.

Adam returned to Gaza and began organizing drawing sessions in the alleys, inviting children and talented individuals. Art was his way of speaking. He drew windows, doors, and open skies. In the first workshop, he told his students: «If we don’t find what we see in front of us, let’s draw it until it appears.»

Yassin returned to Sfax and established an open dialogue circle in a public square. They discussed issues of education, participation, and justice, and drew on a white paper a gradual path for small initiatives. Yassin was among them, asking, listening, and saying whenever they stumbled: «When we truly differ, we get closer to meaning.»

As for Kira, she remained there, at the edge of the sea, with the notebook open before her. She wasn’t writing about the past, but searching for a new beginning for what could come. She believed that whoever remains captive to what has passed cannot build what deserves to be born. She wrote in clear handwriting: «We cannot build the future if we do not leave room for moving forward.»

Sandra Sami es una periodista y especialista en comunicación tunecina que actualmente cursa un máster en periodismo en el Doha Institute for Graduate Studies gracias a una beca de excelencia académica. Ha trabajado en radio, televisión y agencias de comunicación en Túnez, Omán y Catar. Ha producido reportajes multilingües, coordinado coberturas mediáticas y colaborado en prensa escrita y producción audiovisual. Es autora de la novela en árabe Eva, finalista del premio Comar d’Or, y ha colaborado con organizaciones internacionales e iniciativas financiadas por la Unión Europea, creando contenidos sobre juventud, cultura y cambio social. Representa a la juventud tunecina en foros internacionales vinculados a los medios y la cultura.

Echoes Across the Sea

Radoslav Sviretsov
Bulgaria

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The ferry rocked gently as we crossed from Bodrum to Kos. The Aegean sparkled like shattered glass under the early summer sun, but my thoughts were somewhere else—adrift between two continents, two cultures, and two futures I had yet to reconcile. 

I am Elif. I was born on the Turkish coast, where minarets pierce the skyline and fishermen mend nets while telling stories about Atatürk and ancient sea gods. But I live in Marseille now, a Mediterranean city with a different rhythm, louder perhaps, yet not unfamiliar. Marseille offered me a scholarship, an escape, a contradiction: both a refuge and a reminder of everything I’d left behind. 

My story begins with a phone call. 

It was my grandmother, from Izmir. “They’re bringing down the fig orchard,” she said, her voice trembling. “The government sold the land to a developer. It will be concrete soon.” 

I hung up and stared at my ceiling. The fig orchard was where I learned to climb trees and listen to cicadas. I used to nap in its shade as a child while my grandmother sang songs older than Turkey itself. I realized, then, that the Mediterranean I knew was disappearing—not only physically, but spiritually. And no one was writing about it. 

I took a notebook, wrote one sentence: «What does the Mediterranean mean if we forget its stories?» And I packed my bag. 

I planned a journey, part pilgrimage, part protest. I would retrace forgotten threads of memory across the Mediterranean, from its eastern shores to its western harbors. I wasn’t sure what I was looking for. But I knew I wanted to listen. 

First stop: Tunisia. 

In Tunis, I stayed with Leila, a poet I’d met through a student exchange. Her apartment overlooked the old Medina, a maze of domes and alleyways. 

“The sea here,” she told me, “Has always been a paradox. It brings spices, silk, strangers… and sometimes, silence.” 

We visited Carthage, walked among ruins where Phoenicians once traded purple dye and ivory. “You know,” Leila said, “our ancestors didn’t see borders. The sea was a thread, not a barrier.” 

That night, I wrote: «What if the Mediterranean is not a sea, but a story told in many languages?» 

From Tunis, I sailed to Sicily. I sat on the deck beside fishermen from Sfax and Palermo. One of them, Salvatore, handed me a piece of bread with sardines. 

“We don’t talk much on these trips,” he said, “but the sea listens.” 

In Palermo, I met an artist named Sofia. Her studio was a converted boathouse, filled with canvases smeared with cobalt and ochre. 

“I paint the sea,” she said, “because it’s the only thing that doesn’t lie.” 

Sofia was born to an Eritrean mother and Sicilian father. Her Mediterranean was hybrid, layered like her brushstrokes. 

She showed me one painting that struck me deeply: a boy reaching into the sea, trying to pull up an anchor tangled in human hair. 

“That’s my brother,” she whispered. “He drowned on the crossing from Libya.” 

We stood in silence. I felt the weight of her pain and also the tenderness in her art. I asked if she hated the sea. 

“No,” she said. “I just wish people saw all of it—not just the blue postcard.” 

I crossed to Athens, a city where myths refuse to die. 

There, I met Youssef. 

He was Syrian, about my age, studying philosophy and delivering food by bicycle to pay rent.

We met in a library, both reaching for the same book: Camus’ The Stranger. 

We laughed. 

He invited me for tea on his rooftop. The Acropolis loomed nearby like a sleeping god. 

“I come from Homs,” he said, “but I lost my home. I live in Athens, but I’m not Greek. I read Plato, but I doubt everything.” 

We talked for hours. About identity, exile, and longing. 

He said, “You know what the Mediterranean really is? It’s not water. It’s the space between missing and belonging.” 

His words stayed with me. 

I went further east, to Lebanon, where the sea is always close, but the past even closer. 

In Beirut, I stayed near the Corniche. At sunrise, fishermen lined the seawall, casting long shadows and longer lines. 

There I met Nadim, a documentary filmmaker who lost his studio in the port explosion. 

“We don’t rebuild cities,” he told me. “We rebuild memory. That’s harder.” 

He showed me fragments of his film: images of his grandmother dancing the dabke at a wedding in Sidon, then cuts to a shattered balcony, then to waves crashing on ruins. 

Nadim took me to Tyre. We walked barefoot along the Phoenician harbor. 

“You can still see Roman mosaics underwater,” he said. “But soon they’ll fade. Saltwater is patient.” 

That night I wrote: «To live by the Mediterranean is to inherit both salt and sorrow.» 

Back in Marseille, I began compiling my notes. The journey had transformed me—not by giving answers, but by widening the questions. I saw the Mediterranean not as a map, but as a mosaic of stories, some bright, some broken. 

I submitted a short essay to a university magazine titled «The Sea Remembers.» It was modest, just a reflection on fig orchards and ferry rides. I didn’t expect much. 

But a month later, I received an email: “We loved your piece. Would you consider expanding it for a symposium on Mediterranean Futures?” 

I sat stunned. 

They wanted me to speak. 

At the event in Barcelona, I stood in a sunlit room filled with writers, musicians, architects, and activists. I was the youngest speaker. 

I took a deep breath. 

And I told my story. 

I spoke of my grandmother’s orchard and of Sofia’s painting. I recited a line from Youssef:

“The Mediterranean is the space between missing and belonging.” I showed a photograph of a fisherman’s hands and read a stanza from Leila’s poem: 

*»Salt binds us / not borders / Our oars echo / the same lullaby» 

I shared Nadim’s footage. The crowd gasped at the juxtaposition of joy and destruction, of childhood and collapse. I ended with a question: 

“If salt preserves, can stories?” 

When I finished, there was silence. Then applause. Then questions. 

One man asked, “Do you believe the Mediterranean has a future?” 

I answered without hesitation: “Yes. But only if we keep listening—to each other, to the past, and to the waves.” 

Months passed. 

The magazine printed my expanded essay. Sofia emailed me a new painting. Youssef sent a voice message: “I’m applying for a writing program in Spain. Thank you for reminding me I have a voice.” 

And Leila? She published her first poetry collection, titled «Daughter of Salt.» 

As for Nadim, his documentary won a small prize in a Marseille festival. He thanked me in his speech. 

As for me, I started teaching creative writing to migrant children in Marseille. Every Tuesday, we sit in a circle and tell stories—some real, some dreamed. One girl from Algeria drew the sea as a grandmother’s face. A boy from Syria called it a mirror. A Roma child from Thessaloniki said, “It’s like a big song we forgot how to sing.” 

Sometimes I close my eyes and try to remember that first sentence I wrote in my notebook: 

«What does the Mediterranean mean if we forget its stories?» 

Now I know the answer: 

It becomes silent. 

And silence is dangerous. 

So we write. 

So we remember. 

So we build. 

One word at a time. 

Radoslav Sviretsov es un arquitecto, fotógrafo y viajero búlgaro cuya obra explora la conexión entre el arte y la naturaleza. Galardonado con numerosos premios internacionales, sus fotografías han sido publicadas en medios como Forbes, The Guardian y PetaPixel. En 2024 fue finalista del Astronomy Photographer of the Year y recibió el Premio de Cultura de la Ciudad de Sofía en la categoría de fotografía artística. En 2025 fue reconocido entre los jóvenes más destacados de Bulgaria y obtuvo el segundo premio en los prestigiosos World Food Photography Awards. También es fundador de la iniciativa solidaria Buy Art, Donate a Child’s Future y ofrece conferencias y talleres de fotografía. Desde 2025 reside en Islandia, donde sus impresionantes paisajes siguen inspirando su trabajo creativo.

The Day the Sea Returned

Ali Al-Smadi
Jordania

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The first time the sea disappeared, no one believed it. 
How could a sea just vanish? 
But in the morning, the sun rose over dry, cracked earth, and the water was gone as if it had never been there. 
 
We followed the news from the rooftops of Irbid — even though the sea was far away, the whole world was talking about it. 
Pictures from Tunis, Beirut, and Alexandria… The sea had vanished, the shores were empty, boats flipped over. 
 
My grandmother, Um Hazem, stood by the window, staring east. 
 
She whispered, “It took away our childhood… and our promises.” 
 
At the time, I didn’t get what she meant. But later, everything became clear. 
 
After a week, people stopped talking about the sea and went back to their lives. 
Then suddenly, a WhatsApp message blew up the group: “Abu Elia’s bakery is giving away free manakeesh!” 
 
I went to see, and found an old man behind the oven, his smile heartwarming. 
 
He told me, “The sea raised me. I lived off its blessings my whole life… Now it’s my turn to feed people.” 
 
I sat with him as he told me stories about his island, and how the sea back then didn’t care about nationalities. 
 
He said, “We were just humans. We were all children of the sea.” 
 
Two weeks later, something strange happened. 
Not with the sea… with us. 
 
A Palestinian girl named Nour painted a huge mural in the park. 
A wave — not of water, but made of hands. Syrian, Moroccan, Greek, Lebanese, Jordanian — all reaching toward each other. 
 
She called it “The Mediterranean We Forgot.” 
 
Every day, we started gathering there. One played music, another read poetry, someone brought coffee. 
And the best part? Dr. Samira — who was always grumpy — began reciting Mahmoud Darwish’s poetry in her beautiful voice. 
 
One day, a boy from Tripoli, Libya, said something so simple it shook the whole place: 
 
“Why do we keep acting like we’re not from the same sea?” 
 
We all fell silent… 
But the next day, a Tunisian chef cooked for everyone, a Moroccan played music, a Syrian sang — and my heart beat differently. 
 
We laughed together, cried together, dreamed together. 
 
Time passed, and the sea still hadn’t returned. 
But our lives? They had changed. 
 
We spoke each other’s languages, cooked each other’s food, memorized each other’s songs. 
We became a sea… but a sea of people, of love, of stories. 
 
Then one day — exactly a year later — I woke up to a strange scent. 
 
The smell of salt and water… the sea? 
 
We all rushed into the street, people shouting: 
“It’s back! The sea is back!” 
 
But the strange thing? No one ran to it. 
 
We all just stood still, smiling. 
 
Because we knew… the sea had been inside us all along. 

Ali Al-Smadi es un estudiante jordano de Medicina de 23 años que cursa el último año de la carrera y siente una profunda pasión por las personas, la salud pública y las historias que nos definen. Su interés por la escritura surgió de forma natural a partir de sus experiencias en el Mediterráneo, especialmente durante su participación en el UfM Med Youth Lab en Marruecos, donde conectó estrechamente con jóvenes de diferentes contextos. Aquella experiencia lo inspiró a explorar cómo la cultura, la identidad y los desafíos compartidos pueden acercarnos. Espera utilizar tanto la medicina como las historias como herramientas para fomentar la conexión, la comprensión y el cambio.