Khaberni - Written by Emad Daoud:
The question was never about the kerosene,
but about the moment we decided to doubt warmth itself!
Kerosene was never a topic for discussion.
It was a scent, not an opinion!
It was warmth, not a file!
It was what happened in the evening when bodies drew close, gathered around the heater, when silence became familial enough to be bearable, and speech less necessary than presence!
We never asked about its color, because things back then were not demanded to prove their innocence or purity! They were transparent because they were born in a world that trusted itself; a world that did not need an instruction manual to believe that warmth was warmth!
When the color of kerosene changed, they told us it was for protection, for regulation, for preventing fraud. They told us what was technically true, but they did not tell us what was existentially true; they did not say that the color was not added to the kerosene alone, but was added to the entire era! They did not say that transparency was no longer a virtue, but had become a problem! And they did not say that innocence was no longer sufficient, but needed a detector!
Here, the color is not a chemical dye, but an alternative ethical measure;
when values fail to protect themselves, colors are summoned!
Kerosene did not change because it is a liquid, but because we could no longer bear for things to be just themselves! We needed a mark, a seal, a color, an explanation. We now live in a world where warmth is not believed unless it is colored, intentions are not trusted unless documented, and humans are not believed unless they present themselves with an instruction manual!
And from here begins the question, not about the fuel, but about everything that has lost its transparency without us noticing!
Why did the taste of apples change before that?
Why did it become suspiciously beautiful?
Why does it perform its nutritional function completely, yet leaves no trace?
Once... apples were not perfect; they were slightly flawed; they carried the scratch of the earth and sometimes betrayed their shape, but they were honest! They convinced you from the first bite, not because they were sweeter, but because they were real!
It was an apple! Not a nutritional promise, not a genetically modified product, not a picture in an advertisement. It was bitten and immediately understood why it was mentioned in myths, why Adam was expelled from Paradise because of it, and why it fell on Newton's head!
We did not improve the taste of apples, we extracted them from time! We disconnected them from their season, from the wait, from their relationship with patience! Taste, in essence, is not a matter of palate but of time!
And what does not wait, leaves no trace!
The apple that does not wait for its season,
resembles the truth that is spoken before it ripens:
It looks complete, but it does not convince!
Today, the apple is polished, shiny, symmetrical, but it has no story! It resembles a high-quality selfie: everything in it is correct; but nothing in it is alive!
And so, just as the taste of apples changed, the taste of days changed too!
The days for which we have no high-definition pictures were less noisy; not because they were more merciful, but because they were not broadcast live! The news was broadcast once, then left to the listener's conscience! Today, the news is repeated and rehashed until it loses its meaning, and the pain is rehashed until it turns into content!
Back then, the country was simple to the extent that it was not usable, not politically employable, nor quickly consumed! People knew each other without apps and without GPS, and the names were lighter because their owners were not forced to carry them as trademarks.
Kindness was not a feat, and simplicity was not a defensive stance; it was the natural state of things.
And back then, women were more feminine; not because femininity was a show, but a presence! They were not illuminated, nor clarified, nor filtered; they walked in the street as if they knew a secret we did not! And girls hid their femininity in their science notebooks; not out of fear, but out of intelligence, because precious things are not displayed!
Today, everything is displayed, even what should not be seen. The excess in appearance has killed surprise, just as excessive explanation has killed the joy of understanding!
And the blessing… that word that finds neither a category in budgets nor an item in reports, but it made the little abundant, and the home wider than it is, and the night warmer than it should be. The blessing did not disappear because resources were scarce, but because the relationship between the human and the thing was broken; we consume before we understand, we explain before we feel, and we complain before we remember!
In villages, memory was not a cultural project, but a way of living and a lifestyle. Every village knew its beginnings without having to write them: the first student who graduated, the first teacher who carried chalk as a message, the first shop that was economy, hub, and a reliable bank too! The small details were cherished because time was slow enough to respect them!
And the Jordan River was not a blue line on a map, but a witness! Its waters were not just geography, but meaning! Villages leaned on it as a human leans on his memory; not just to drink, but to reassure that something was still running as it should!
And the stone, for us, was not inanimate!
From mud-brick houses to cities carved in rock; stone was a solid memory that did not betray! And the desert too was not an emptiness, but silent wisdom; its silence kept secrets because it knew noise dissipated them!
That era was not without poverty or cruelty, but it was devoid of impudence!
People hurt, but they were not paraded. They were hungry, but they were not managed as data. Life was less comfortable, but it was more meaningful!
And when the color of kerosene changed, it was not just a measure; it was an unwritten admission that trust was no longer fit for use, that the market needed a detector, and that morals had become a probability, not a given! Because when matter needs color to prevent deception, it means that deception is no longer an exception, but a standing possibility!
The most dangerous thing about colors added to things,
is that they teach us – slowly – to add colors to ourselves.
We embellish intent, improve biography, and filter memory,
so that we are not accused of being “unfit for public use!”
We do not reminisce about the past because it was perfect, but because it did not need to be explained! There was no question: Why was this more beautiful? Because the question itself was not posed. Today we ask because we doubt; we doubt the taste, the color, the intentions, and even our memory!
The shock is not that the color of kerosene changed.
The shock is that we understood the reason and did not feel comfort!
However, immortality is not to rewind time, nor to sanctify it, nor to relive it. Immortality is to understand exactly what we have lost, not to mourn it, but so that we do not lose what remains!
And to understand that transparency is not a color, and that kindness is not naivety, and that simplicity is not a childish stage of history!
Why did the color of kerosene change?
Because it had to change in a world that decided to be managed rather than lived!
But the more dangerous question, about which there is no official statement from the Energy and Mineral Regulatory Commission, is:
When did our color change?
And do we still have enough warmth,
so that we do not need to color ourselves
to be believed?
Perhaps it was not just the color of kerosene that changed.
Perhaps the definition of honesty itself changed:
from something experienced,
to something inspected!
