Young Eyes

The ten year old child sat by the water. They saw what was happening and it wasn't good. Affecting them greatly, bringing nightmares and nasty flashbacks. Things their young mind struggled to comprehend. Seeing the Syrian soldiers shoot at the Lebanese fishermen, killing some. 'It's what we do, open fire. Ask questions later,' commented a soldier. He seemed nonchalant even happy.

The child witnessed many things, some random, others not. All were harsh events. Against a backdrop of beautiful blue water, history was made. A rickety biplane clattered by. From its belly dropped a tin fish - a torpedo. It entered the sea and thudded into a Turkish ship. And with a boom detonated. The ship sunk, first ever by torpedo from a warplane. What of her crew?

The child saw another ship, quite low in the water, sail from a harbour. Many people were aboard. They weren't happy, it was no holiday cruise. One teenage girl cried. Her mother explained that her father was killed by the North and he'd worked for the Americans. Now they fled for their lives and needed a home. They were Vietnamese boat people.

The child was fed up of seeing sad things. This didn't mean they weren't still a witness. Now a different boat full of unhappy people fleeing bad events. On their way to Italy and Europe in search of new lives and again, happiness. Many boats had sunk with hundreds drowning. Lampedusa is full of illegal immigrants, outnumbering the local population.

We ask, how can a child see so many things, all tragic, from so many locations? It's a surprising answer: we, the reader, are the child, the 'observer' of events. We see it firsthand or on the news. And things are worse not better. What will we observe next? Something happy? Or a new Titanic? Our ignorance can be naive, doing nothing isn't innocent. It's incomprehensible.