The Spoon

Apr 09, 2025

“You see this spoon, son?” the father whispered.

“Yeah.”

“It’s the only thing I have left of your mother.”

He remembered her fingers dusted in flour, the way she’d hum over a bubbling pot, the melody infusing into the food.

“She used it to feed me, right?”

“Yes. Every day—ba’lawah, tabakh rohoo, mujadara. Back when the skies were quiet.”

The boy smiled slowly. His lips were dry, cracked at the corners.

Outside, the wind rattled an empty can down the street. The father didn’t move.

“It’s been months now. Since the last truck.”

“What trucks?”

“The ones with the white flags. America’s food.”

“Why did they stop?”

The father stroked his son’s hair, so thin now, like straw. Too brittle for a six-year old.

“Because someone in a room far away decided we didn’t matter.”

The boy didn’t answer. His eyes had drifted half-shut, stomach growling.

The father pressed his forehead to the boy’s. “Hey. Stay with me.”

“I’m tired.”

“I know, son.”

“We still matter, don’t we?”

The father swallowed. “We do. Some people only see what they want, and the world forgets quickly.”

Footsteps echoed past the door.

“Papa?”

“Hush.”

They waited until all was silent again. Then the father held up the spoon like a relic.

“We’ll eat a story tonight. Remember the one where the pomegranate tree fed a hundred children?”

The boy’s smile barely reached his eyes. “Mama told it better.”

“That is true,” the father said. “But, as long as someone remembers the story, her spoon still feeds us.”

The boy’s fingers curled around the blanket’s frayed edge.

The father stayed still beside him, hollow and waiting, the spoon resting in his hand like a prayer left half-spoken.