Photo: © J Hardy Carroll
The cells were small. Sturdy enough to keep them separated. Aerated enough to keep them alive. Near enough to let them marinate in each other’s misery.
What the jailers did not foresee, however, was how they were just close enough to offer comfort. Fingers laced through fencing let them hold hands. Almost.
Oh, they moved to corners when anyone came. Pretended to hate each other. Endured each other’s fake bullying that so amused their captors.
But in the silent moments they sat close, back-pressed-through-chain-to-back. Their ‘caretakers’ warehoused them like animals, but the children’s defiance held: they remembered they were siblings.
For Rochelle’s Friday Fictioneers
Na'ama Yehuda 
The human spirit always find a way. Well, almost always
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Almost always …
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Oh….tender, fierce and poignant. Thank you! 💚✨💚
Adele Ryan McDowell, Ph.D.
AdeleRyanMcDowell.com Adeleandthepenguin.com MakingPeacewithSuicide.com Channeledgrace.com
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Thank you, Adele! It made me think of current realities of all too many, in one version of this or another …
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wow… heart wrenching! Wonderfully penned!
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Thank you, Penny! I appreciate you reading and commenting!
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❤ Such a tale of courage and humanity amidst such inhumanity.
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Thank you … and yes … we are often faced with both these days, in actions of governments and individuals who harm others because they can … and in the dignity that the victims display in spite of all the ugliness they are subjected to. …
And then there are all the millions who face maltreatment and abuse … and find a way to go on.
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I love this hopefulness in the face of adversity. Well done.
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Thank you!
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I really really like this!!
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I am really really glad you do! 🙂
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Sharing warmth is a basic instinct that all mammals seem to possess. Touching story.
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Sharing warmth, yes. Also sharing attachment, and the reality – especially among the vulnerable – that one cannot survive alone.
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There are some things which can’t beaten out of you. I wonder what the backstory is here, sounds interesting!
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That is very true. Some break, others find a way to hold part of themselves shielded. Glad you liked this!
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Horrible fate, but I too found hope in their little moments of comfort.
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Yes, and I hope they did find hope … and that perhaps, somehow, they got rescued …
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I know you’ve written about humans, but it reminds me of experiments with various primates in captivity, results of which have done much to help us understand the importance of touch in child development.
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Yes! And it was on my mind, too, that these could easily be primates, or other kinds of sentient beings (humans aren’t the only ones), and I was very much speaking of the need for contact. Learning of the primate experiments with the cloth mother and the wire mother horrified me as a college student, and continue to horrify me still. Of course, since we also know about the impact of stress on the development of mammals (especially) from mice to rats to others. Kindness and attachment are paramount. Stress and cruelty are damaging.
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Horrifying though it is, we’ve learned a lot about ourselves too. Though I’d say the work of Jane Goodall provided us with more than any university or zoo
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True. There were a lot of people who taught us a lot, and there were things learned from atrocities, too. It would not be the way to teach them, but since they’d happened, we might as well take what information we have from it so that they NOT be repeated.
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Might be crass to call it a silver lining, and yet criminal to ignore the lessons
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Ignoring the lessons would be terrible, if only to ensure they never repeat. I agree.
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Indeed.
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🙂
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Na’ama Y’karah,
This just breaks my heart to read. And to know it’s going on. Beautifully written.
Shalom,
Rochelle
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Thank you, Rochelle. Yes, it is heartbreaking that it goes on, in more way and in more place than one, and to more people than some want to admit. And even as a ‘policy’ by some who claim it is justified as a ‘deterrent’ to prevent vulnerables who are seeking help as they flee impossible situations … 😦
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great story. i felt every word. simply one of the best this week.
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Thank you! What a lovely comment to leave! I think there were many good entries this week – as in every week – it is such a great community of writers and thinkers and dabblers and creative spirits. 🙂
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You have a knack, dear Na’ama, for bringing these stories to life. Such a sad but well-written tale.
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Aww, shucks, thank you Dale! I’m so glad you think this of my mini-stories. I’m of those who are inclined to go LONGER rather than shorter … so these mini-fiction bits are excellent exercise and fun workout for a more concise kind of writing. 🙂 It is fun to get the hang of it, and it is fun when it works well! I’m so glad this one did! 🙂
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It is a great exercise to cut the fat… though I am really enjoying Emilia…
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You have no idea how happy this makes me! (Well, maybe you do have an idea. … 😉 )
THANK YOU! xoxo Na’ama
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If I didn’t enjoy It, I’d say nothing ..
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Oh….well, whew… (I hope…) 😉
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Hahaha! No worries
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🙂
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Such a moving piece. So much said in so few words.
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Thank you, Keith!
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So sad and emotionally well told.
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Thank you, James! I’m not glad it was sad but I’m glad it connected …
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Hopefully their secret moments gave them strength to endure and that they will one day be free. A heartbreaking story powerfully described.
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Amen and amen and I sure hope so. Especially as for some, even in this moment, in this day, this may well be reality. In all too many places persons are trafficked, enslaved, and mocked. Even in supposedly civilized countries, children are torn away from their families and placed in cages, ridiculed, minimized, ignored. May they all find the strength to survive. May they all be free soon.
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Amen!
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🙂
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Wow. I’d love to know the siblings’ background story. Gritty.
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Thank you!
I think their story is perhaps more common than we’d like to think – trafficking, modern-day slavery, children separated from their families and imprisoned, refugee ‘holding centers’ and ‘internment camps’ and and and …
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Ooo yes!
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🙂
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Beautifully disturbing and poignant.
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Thank you … and may the realities some still endure, in different variations of this, soon not be real and be relegated to fiction alone …
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That would be nice.
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Indeed!
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This is how resistance can grow… and what a good way to give the warden’s a show.
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One does what one can …
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