The Boy Carries His Mother in His Pocket, by Rahad Abir

The boy carries his mother in his pocket. Two days… she stinks, doesn’t smell motherly anymore. It was the other night when gunshots and armaments sounded a thunderstorm. Yet as a stray shell tore apart their home, they slept. He alone made it out of the jumble of rubble. As morning broke in ravaged Aleppo, he spotted his mother’s ring aflame with sunlight. Her severed finger! Mother had sold everything to feed them but this wedding ring. He took her, carefully pocketed her. The rescuers came, collecting dead bodies. But his mother—her finger, stayed with him.