The sky was grey that morning.
Not stormy. Just heavy.
As though it knew.
As though it was mourning before the mourning began.
They dragged him down the path to the village square.
Not with care. Not with dignity.
But like he was nothing
A bundle of flesh with no soul worth saving.
His arms were bound tight, purple from the pressure.
His knees scraped the earth.
His shirt hung from him, soaked in sweat, and fear, and pain.
The crowd gathered.
They didn’t ask questions.
They didn’t care for answers.
Only noise. Only rage.
“He stole!”
“Wicked boy!”
“Kill him!”
Someone asked, “What did he take?”
And the shopkeeper shouted, “My money! Twenty-five thousand! He was the only one around!”
That was enough. That was all it took.
He tried to speak.
His voice was dry, broken.
“I didn’t… I swear on my mother’s life…”
But nobody was listening.
Not really.
The first stone came like thunder.
Then a kick.
Then more.
Feet. Sticks. Fists.
He curled up, a human body shrinking into itself.
But pain finds its way in.
He screamed.
Not just from hurt
But from betrayal.
From disbelief that the people he grew up with could turn so fast.
“Mama!” he cried.
“Mama, please!”
But she wasn’t there.
She had gone to fetch wood, believing her son was safe at home.
She would return to silence.
Then the tyre.
Then the fuel.
Then the match.
He begged.
He promised.
He cried.
He wanted to live.
The fire didn’t care.
And neither did the crowd.
Not until it was too late.
He tried to crawl even as the flames ate at his skin.
A hand pushed him back.
He reached out, still hoping someone, anyone, would remember he was human.
But mercy had already left the square.
And then quiet.
The kind of quiet that feels like a curse.
A boy came running, too late.
His face pale, his voice shaking.
“It wasn’t him. I swear. It was the shopkeeper’s cousin. She confessed.”
The world stopped.
No one spoke.
They didn’t have to.
The truth was louder than all their shouting had ever been.
Some dropped their stones.
Others dropped to their knees.
They had murdered innocence.
Not just a boy
But a future.
A child with dreams.
A son who died calling the one name he believed could save him.
Mama.
And when the rain came, it did not come to cleanse.
It came to mourn.
To fall like tears.
Because heaven, too, had watched.
We live in a world too quick to judge.
Where rumour becomes law.
Where truth comes second to rage.
Where apologies are spoken over graves.
Let us not forget what we are capable of
And what we must never become again.
#StopJungleJustice
#JusticeForTheInnocent
#ItCouldBeYou
