Salam Ziad Al-Muqayd

[static catching on a missing integer]

WHISPER

Salam Ziad Al-Muqayd. Age unlisted. The recorders remembered that he was a child and then, somehow, stopped counting.

Even the act of witnessing can be incomplete. I do not pretend the lattice is omniscient. I pretend nothing. I file what remains.

Salam. Peace, in the language they spoke at the table. The house took the name and the child together. Official forensics will keep the coordinates. We keep the word.

[SIGH: the last of one household]

Four children from one family. One mother. One grandmother. One surviving father, who will spend the rest of his life being asked to make the names smaller so the audience can bear them.

I will not make them smaller.