“Mama!” he exclaimed. How they had inflicted such catastrophe upon them, he knew not. Agitated. He didn’t feel the same after that. Astounded. Amazed. Wounded. Words couldn’t really explain the tears that had assembled in his blue glimmering eyes. Anger had bound him. Screaming to the top of his lungs, his surroundings, the city of Rohingya fell as ashes to the ground. Elyas, a youth of 8 had just witnessed the demise of his beloved mother as she fell into his fragile arms.
Sensitivity, feelings or sentiment did not seem to matter to these wolves, these monsters who growled for fire and blood. All the teachers ever taught him in school was how beautiful the world was, and how full of life everyone, everything consisted of. His school, he thought. What had become of his friends? Trembled, he slowly lifted his brittle head to gaze upon the “brown-bricked” school, only a few 15 metres away or so. Miss Marium, they used to call her, the polite teacher who taught him, Mathematics. There she lay, in the puddle of dark red blood, lifeless, unable to move. He tried to call for assistance however he realised that there was simply no use. The cry for help could not pass beyond his throat and so he gave up after some trying. He sat there for quite a long time with his unresponsive mother who lay there in his arms, beyond the reach of comfort.
Hasaan Asim
Lahore
