Fireworks
by Dalia Taha trans Clem Naylor

There's no-one in the streets but us.

You run that way and I'll run this way.

Whoever gets back to the front door first without getting shot, wins.

In a Palestinian town eleven-year-old Lubna and twelve-year-old Khalil are playing on the empty stairwell in their apartment block.

As the siege intensifies outside, fear for their safety becomes as crippling as the conflict itself.

Dalia Taha's play offers a new way of seeing how war fractures childhood.

Fireworks (Al'ab Nariya) is part of International Playwrights: A Genesis Foundation Project and received its world premiere at the Royal Court Theatre, London, on 12 February 2015.