She cradled onto her child on what seemed to be her only strand of hope, her only strand of survival, her only strand of identity…
I walked down a narrow path which spread out like a disease to more narrow paths. Which one I would take, made me confused. I was like a mouse trapped in a maze, going round and round in circles. Every corner looked alike with the same haunting moans and weakened cries, the same stomach churning stench of rotting bodies, the same apparent shadows of death. Every step I took forward deepened my internal wounds! My heart wept silently yet miserably for all the lost souls and abandoned people. Those secret glances I would steal while passing by through every tent, sent agonizing pain flushing through my body as if in a grand prix… The feeling of being sliced through the engine of an aeroplane devoured me! How could I possibly go on? This was no refugee camp but another foreshadow of a cemetery! Rats in the sewers may have had a better life than this! My feet nailed themselves onto the damp ground as if refusing to undergo this torture. Screeching sounds could be heard in the distance at the loss of loved ones which looped continuously in my head like a damaged tape. Dropping onto the floor feeling like a worthless sack of potatoes, I blocked my ears as tight as I could and hoped that it would go away – the images, the smell, and the sounds… all of it!
A soothing but frail voice managed to meet my ears. Hypnotized by the voice, I found myself standing outside a tattered tent that looked ready to crumble down easily like a pack of cards. The tattered sheets that made up the tent revealed slight traces of unrecognizable stains on them while the indistinct light coming from within grew dimmer with each passing second. I shuddered at the condition of the tent but the voice had enchanted a spell on me. In such adverse conditions the mysterious voice managed to sing a song, a song which I could not understand, but seemed to be a ray of sunshine piercing through the clouds… I outstretched my trembling hand and slowly moved the sheet aside and entered the tent.
A decaying carcase-like odour filled the atmosphere with a mixture of overstayed urine. In one corner, a thin, bone-like lady sat near a half-burnt out lamp and moved forward and backward singing to the same song. My heart began to pound as loud as the drums of the Yanomami Tribe, as cold creepy chills found their way down my spine the closer I got to her. The remains of her hair looked like a worn out toilet brush and her neck was a twig. I slowly placed my wobbly clammy hand onto her shoulder when suddenly her singing stopped. My heart skipped a beat. She turned her head in a robotic manner and glared at my hand emotionlessly. I waited…
Within a blink of an eye, the lady somehow managed to push me away from her like I was a hawk threatening her nestlings’ lives. I fell onto the ground with a thud. Her aggressive red-blood eyes could have speared through me had they been knives. Drowned with fright, I crawled backwards and kept my distance from her. A great depth of pain had filled her eyes as she turned forward and began singing her song. It was then when I discovered that lying in her arms was an innocent young soul incapable of sin but punished for a crime it had not committed. His body was fragile… His flesh was reduced to ‘left-overs’ on his bones and his lips had dried up like a river suffering from drought while he gasped for the little amount of air he could get. His ribs popped out of his tiny body whereas his cheek bones and skull began to display his skeletal figure. Tainted teeth were visible as his mouth looked like it had been sucked inwards. His eyes, unable to open properly, had popped out of their sockets and lacked moisture. My soul felt tied to an anchor as it sank deep into the oceans of their misery. He was vulnerable and could easily be crushed like a crisp. I watched in dread as what seemed to appear as bullet wounds and deep cuts became an infected plague over him which attracted flies hovering over his wounds. With my bare eyes I watched him slowly decompose… I covered my hand over my mouth trying to contain my unbearable cries but even emotions were not enough to express the hideous moment when his last breath escaped his lips trying to form a word “m… ma…” - Mother. An ordinary word which gives great importance to a woman in the world, a word which fills her life with unimaginable happiness, a word that every mother’s ears would love to hear for the first time and now a last word that had signified the passing of her beloved son.
His mother began combing the remains of his rust-coloured hair and maintained her ghostly smile, adjusted him in her arms and continued singing to him.
This she did like putting flowers on a tiny grave…
