In the air, dust was thick, memories of shattered buildings and broken lives carried with the wind. A boy of ten, amidst the ruins of Rafah, sat and pondered on a raggedy burlap bag containing everything he had left in this world. The small, fragile hands held the worn fabric of an overdressed, oversized jacket, a poor excuse against the biting cold of uncertainty.
His name was Amir. Once, in those days, he had a home filled with laughter; a father who took him on his shoulders to watch the sunset over the city, and a mother who hummed lullabies while baking the daily bread. Such innocent memories were shattered with the onset of the war. One night, the very sky was rent asunder by the din of gunfire, just with the flip of a coin, all was gone: his parents, his little sister, and his home. All buried under rubble.
The boy wandered through the ruins, shadows of people displaced like him, broken, searching for what is forever lost. He would see them moving through the debris like spectral wanderers, careful not to set foot upon their pasts; even in those stark surroundings, they were searching for something-some infinitesimal remnant that would testify to who they were before war forced them into becoming refugees in their very own city.
But Amir had no place to come back to. No house to check, no items to collect. His bag carried only what he had picked up along the way-a half-empty bottle of water, a torn blanket, a dusty toy car. Not his actually but one he had found next to a wall just brought down, and he fancied that it was a gift from his father.
His stomach was growling, but he had long gotten used to hunger pangs. The pain was dull and constant, just like the sorrow in his heart. He cast his eyesight toward the horizon, where dusk was commencing, with the sun setting behind the ruins of a once-great city. Did his mother watch him from afar beyond the clouds?
A tear slid down his cheek and mixed with the dust on his face. He brushed it away quickly; he was not a man to afford tears.
Tomorrow he would walk again. He would seek something to eat, kindness, or some evidence of a reason to believe he had a place in this world.
But tonight, he would linger here on his bag of memories while the wind would carry his silent prayers to the empty sky.
Eliezer Rodriguez
Frontline Pulse 