So what would it take for Seyit’s thoughts, fears and hurt to be relevant to you?  As relevant as those of the little boys in your life.  Answer that, and you might just answer the question “Why, when there’s so much suffering, does the world just watch?”

Istanbul, Turkey

Seyit lifts his throbbing head and his eyes make an effort to focus.

  The procession of lower bodies continues, tirelessly, past his face. They stir the close mid-summer air, but fail to muster for him a clear breath.

  Today, he’s chosen the remains of a chicken donor kebab on which to fix his gaze. He studies all of its aspects, until his mind becomes drunk.

  He knows every indent and crack of that particular section of footpath – a bland construction of which he’s grown a part, making him somewhat …. invisible.

  The sun makes him screw up his eyes, and the more he thinks about it, the more they sting.  So he tries not to think about it. And he tries not to rub at them.

  Thanks God, he whispers, with regard to nothing in particular. Of course there doesn’t need to be anything. He makes a habit of saying that when he’s not feeling entirely well with the world.

  He pulls a bus ticket from his suit pocket and tries to remember where he got it from. It has more lines than his dark, grubby, hands, and the ink has mostly rubbed off. He touches the other pocket, and one corner of his crack-dry lips turn upwards. The “kaching” of his two, new, 100-thousand lira coins sounds nice.

  Two legs pause to the side of him. Foreign legs. Hairy. White like milk. His heart starts to race. A customer?

‘Would you like to weigh yourself, Sir?’ He nods towards his scales. 

Like his watch, the scales say what they please.  But they are his, and anyone wanting to use them will have to pay for the privilege.

The foreigner looks away – a response Seyit knows well. They pretend that they haven’t noticed the obstruction in their path, unable to part with their useless coins, yet too ashamed to look a benign little boy in the eyes.

  Then there are the ones who find him unusual enough that they take a photo – something to write home about. But still, not worth a coin.

He’ll need to buy a bread soon. His stomach says he’s hungry, but he needs to decide if dinner time has come yet. More difficult than one might think with a watch that has a mind of his own, though a few good taps and it will oft. remember itself.

  It is sometimes interesting to imagine where in the world his watch might have been – what it could tell him about those places – if, of course, it could talk. And now … discarded by some tourist…. for a newer, more sparkly, one.

  His watch is nice, he thinks, as his eyelids threaten to close. Daydreaming is more effort than he has energy for at this moment in time, whatever that may be.

  His knees and behind are aching as he sits, hunched against a rough stone wall, out of the line of passers-by. There’s little left to feed his imagination. Dirty, bled of emotion and numb with resignation, Seyit remembers his one big God, and falling off to sleep, he resolves to push on with the journey.