A Flicker of Hope

A Flicker of Hope

Walaa Kourshid
Third Year

One day I was walking in the street,
And the killing heat was burning my feet.
I was gazing at the faces around me,
Especially street children who cannot from their fate flee,
When I was shocked with this scenery…

“Hey, give me money…I want money…a penny…a piaster…anything…” and that was everything. Do you know who this was? A four-year old street child; I did not realise whether the child was a boy or a girl. I did not notice anything except the torn clothes and dirty hair. S/he was just pulling my shirt, my bag and begging me for money hysterically. I thought he was dying of hunger and I was going to give him/her money when I suddenly abstained. Contrary to what I expected, she was a girl, not a boy, and her good mother was standing at the corner watching her begging. What a kind-hearted mother!!!

Soon came to my mind Blake’s lines:

They clothed me in clothes of death,
And taught me to sing the notes of woe.

Days pass, hours go, and more helpless children are lost in this world. Once again I met a girl; I was sure she was a girl this time. She was no more than seventeen years old. You may not consider her a child but her looks asserted that she was. That child, whose name was “Sa‘deya”, was carrying two other children who seemed to be her babies. She worked at house cleaning. Her elder son was about five years old and had an amputated leg, while the other was nearly a year old. It was easy then to imagine their status. In spite of their hard circumstances, the elder boy was playing happily and innocently with his younger brother. With some clownish acts he made his younger brother laugh, and he laughed along with him in turn. Their laughs were truly from the heart. However, old, miserable looking eyes were gazing around them. They were pale, full of tears and grief. Such eyes were the mother’s, but suddenly they became vital, lively and active. They were those pure laughs that changed these miserable looks. As a child, “Sa‘deya” shared her two babies their laughs and happiness and forgot about all her grief. Her eyes carried a hope for her children and for the future, which reminds me of Blake’s lines:

And because I am HAPPY & dance & sing,
They think they have done me no injury,
And are gone to praise God & his Priest & King,
Who make up a HEAVEN of our misery.