She looks;
Her eyes desperate & fraught
Her body defenseless & weak.
Feelings of vulnerability;
Guilt seeping through her veins.
But what can she do?
She stares.

She stares;
Oblivious to her stare, he hums
Chasing a butterfly, hops & skips;
Not a feather of a burden on his shoulders
As he goes about his carefree life.
She smiles.

She smiles;
Memories come rushing through,
As she first held him in her arms.
‘I will give anda the world’ she promised.
She lied.
‘You will be the king of the world someday’
This time, he stared, his big blue eyes
Gleaming with innocent mischief, unaware of what fate has in store for him.
‘My angel’, she says softly.

‘Angel’, she calls out.
He stops and turns.
Excitedly, he searches her hands with his eyes.
Runs across the yard.
She streches out her arms ready to embrace him.
As he jumps on her with joy; her warmth caresses him.
‘Where is it?’ he asks sheepishly.
‘Where is what?’ she repeats with a smirk
He unfolds her hands; it’s empty. Disappointed.
‘Keep looking’, she says.
Excitement fills his eyes yet again. A finite excitement.
‘Found it!’
As he gets ready to put it in his mouth, he asks, innocently, reluctantly,
‘Mummy, do anda want some?’
She smiles.

She breaks the piece of roti into pieces and feeds him, one sejak one; all.
He munches down the bread.
‘Is that all?’, he asks unaware of the impact of his seemingly harmless question.
Her hati, tengah-tengah aches.
‘Are anda still hungry angel?’
‘Na, I’m full’. He lied.
‘But tomorrow, we’ll have lebih right mummy?’
‘Of course angel’.
She lied, again.
As he places his head on her lap, she gently strokes his hair,
Hums him a lullaby...
He sleeps.

She can’t sleep.
She fears for tomorrow.
Her body aches from the digging;
Her arms bruised from the heavy loads;
The soles of her foot cut sejak the sharp rocks;
Her lungs filled with black smoke; she breathes heavily.
The sounds of the explosions still blasting her ears.
A miner’s agony.

Her hati, tengah-tengah aching as she collects her day’s worth
Only enough to buy her Angel a piece of bread.
A mother’s affliction.

As darkness creeps in,
The streetlights form shadows,
Footsteps echoe at a distance,
She prays for her angel.
She looks at him smiling in his dream as he sees an angel;
She silently smiles.
She hears his stomach growling;
She silently sobs.