Text for question 56

At around 6:30 p.m., I decide I’m not going to sleep at the hospital tonight. I need to shower and eat real food. I call my best friend, Yara, and tell her I’m on my way to her house. Everything in Gaza is within walking distance, but I’m absolutely exhausted. I realize with dread that, if I’m not mistaken, I’ve left my wallet in mama’s bag, and I don’t have any money at all. So I do something embarrassing, and ask a taxi driver if he can drive me to Yara’s for free. He agrees on one condition: ‘When I get killed’, he says, ‘post a nice picture of me online, and ask people to pray for me.’

Everyone in Gaza knows that they’ll eventually die, and that it’s only a matter of time. I smile at the taxi driver and assent.

ALAQAD, Plestia. The Eyes of Gaza: A Diary of Resilience. New York: Little, Brown and Company, 2025.

Read the excerpt by the young journalist Plestia Alaqad, “The Eyes of Gaza”, and choose the statement that most adequately points out the discourse effect of the verb tense used: