(Alan Shenu 2015)
As he watches the world stare at the tiny body on the shore, the memory returns.
The waves. The smell of salt. The dry, crusty skin of the passengers pressed against him in the crowding boat.
He lives it all again.
He is back there, trying to escape a country that suffocates life, embarking on a pilgrimage to death.
He hears the cries of those who cannot swim. He knows how to swim, but the panic rises in him anyway.
Then, the darkness finds him: Did this two-year-old know how to swim? Did he cry for help?
He clings to the only comfort he can find, that the child did not feel the panic of dying.
That he was asleep when the sea, the toxic regime and a greedy smuggler took his life.
There are only two innocents here: the kid and the sea. He does not blame the sea.