There's a boy I have never been able to stop thinking about.
A little boy. Sitting alone in the dust.
And he was eating sand.
Fistfuls of it. Bringing it to his mouth, chewing, swallowing. Because he had nothing else.
No bread. No rice. No scraps.
Just sand.
And I still can't stop seeing him. I can't stop hearing the sound of his small hands scooping at the ground. I can't stop imagining what it must feel like to be that hungry.
To be so desperate that even dirt feels like mercy.
I don't know his name. I never found it out.
But I know this:
He wasn't always like this.
Once, he had a uniform.
Once, he walked to school with a backpack on his shoulders.
Once, he was top of his class. The one who stayed behind to help his friends, the one who made his mother proud.
And now, he eats what's left beneath the rubble.
I keep thinking:
What does sand taste like to a starving child?
Does it help, even for a moment?
Does it quiet the ache?
Does it make him forget that the world has forgotten him?
This is what war does.
It doesn't just shatter buildings.
It shatters childhoods.
It steals futures.
It forces little boys who once dreamed of becoming doctors or teachers to eat dirt just to feel full.
And here I am. Safe behind a screen. My belly full. My family fed.
He would be older now. Taller, maybe. If he was allowed to grow.
And that boy?
He's still there.
Still scraping at the ground.
Still swallowing dust.
Still waiting for a kindness that may never come.
Or he isn't. That's the part I have to hold too. I don't know if he's alive. Nobody told me. Nobody was ever going to tell me. He is one of the ones the world doesn't follow up on.
And I keep asking myself. How can we bear this?
How can we sleep tonight knowing a child is out there eating sand to quiet the screams of hunger?
What does that say about us?
Because this? this is the moment that should break us open.
This is the moment we stop saying "how sad" and start asking, "what can I do?"
So please. Don't let his story end with dirt between his teeth.
Let it end with you reaching out.
With food.
With aid.
With proof that we saw him, that we felt him, that we refused to look away.
Because he deserves more than our sorrow.
He deserves our action.
And if we don't act, then what's left of our humanity?
With grief I can't swallow, and a hope I refuse to bury,
Hafsa