What We Deserve

He is a terror. He keeps kicking the trash cans that are on hinges, so they screech and rock forward and back. His mother has been trying to pray a bit, his father has been filling up water at the spring. So, briefly left to his own devices, the boy has been trying to disturb as many targets as possible. His mother calls for him to stop, warns that he is going to get hurt. He runs through crowds of tourists, cutting around them, making them stagger their steps, trip over each other, drop their guidebooks and cameras. They glare at him. Tiny as he is, he inspires a hearty disdain in the strangers around him.

When he falls, when he scrapes his knee, the tourists glance away.  One woman raises an eyebrow and smirks, vindicated that the boy gets what he deserves, after being so rude and so reckless. His mother’s prediction came true, and the woman exchanges looks with companions.

Yet, his mother goes straight to him. She gathers him up from the ground, tends to his knee. He goes silent in her arms. She tells him he should have listened, but she whispers it, a kind rebuke, as she embraces her son in her love.

–Ephesus, Turkey.