Rahm | Mercy

This is for the mothers of war.

For the women from whom war has taken everything.

For the women who hold the last hopes of war.

This is for the women of Afghanistan and Iran

Of Syria and Libya, or Iraq and Yemen.

This is for the mothers of the past, the future and the present.

This is for you.

The silence came to a screeching halt, when she began screeching. Soon her screeches turned into screams and her screams ripped the cosmos to shreds. Her cries the sound of cities burning to the ground. The sheer desperation and despair in her voice broke every single person around her. And in the most terrifyingly beautiful way, her cries gave us a peek into her soul. Her pain a spectacular spectacle. Making us feel things we had never felt before.

Her son had died.

He had died and there was nothing she could do about it. Her little boy was no more. And we could feel that in her ballad to the heavens. In her plea for a miracle woven in threads of hate. In every emotion she felt, we bore witness. Stunned. Awed. Ashamed. I could have sworn that in her deafening screams I could see the rhythm of her soul. I could feel the color of her pain. And what a color. It was the color of loss, of hate, of despair. It was the color of hopelessness with the slightest hue of hope for the impossible. Short-lived.

And we watched. In a trance. Too afraid to make a move and break the scene unfolding before us. Just as she, we were trapped. Not in a scream, but by one. It was not until the chains were gone had we realized that we’d been bound, breathless. That's when we saw it. She was no longer a person. Only an object. Broken. As she lay upon her son's body for she had exhausted every avenue, every cell of her being, in her pleas for resurrection.

Mute. The only word in my mind as silence took over once more. Mute were her efforts. Her screams muted by her exhaustion. Her eyes red and puffy. Her face tear-struck. She wasn't wearing any mascara. I don't know why I noticed that but there was no mascara, no lipstick. Her face was bare, her exposition exposing her innermost thoughts. Visible to anyone wanting to observe. Only no observation could be made. For even in her silence she held us captive.

A ghost. That's what she was. A ghost. Alive? Sure. Her heart beat still pure. But her eyes were dead. Her soul diminished. She was gone. She was gone for she had failed. She had failed for her son was lost. Her son was lost for WE had failed. For we had chosen to look away. For we had chosen to let things stay… the same as they have for generations. We had killed her. And she had died. Long before the second bullet left the gun. Long before the second bullet crushed through her skull, cruised through her brain and came out the other end. She was dead long before we heard the second gunshot.

And time was lost. It could have been hours, seconds, minutes, days, weeks, years, months that that moment lasted. Only it didn’t matter anymore. For Time was lost upon that broken woman.

For her son had died. He had died and there was nothing she could do about it. Her little boy was no more. And in that endless moment, in her infallible failure, she had died with him. A broken woman on the broken pavement in that broken city. Mother no longer.

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