DOUMA—We have lost sight of the outside world, a gift that other people take for granted. Our universe has become so small and shattered. "The universe starts in Al-Mleiha and ends in Douma," Abo Mahmoud told me one night, referring to two of the suburbs in our besieged world of East Ghouta, a conurbation just outside Damascus. Time slipped by as we sat his dim room, illuminated only by a tiny battery-powered bulb. Abo Mahmoud is only forty but he looks like an elderly man. I remember how he was back in 2011, when the demonstrations began: young in spirit... more