cracked, as if his tongue had forgotten how to utter words that didn't taste of fear. "Is it poisoned?" he whispered to himself, his eyes tracing the steam rising from the bowl. But his inner voice, which had begun to reclaim its cold logic, slapped him with a rational question: "Why would he go through the trouble of treating you and binding your wounds, only to kill you with poison in a soup?"
Joe remained there, his hand extended with the wooden dish, his calm gaze steady behind his thick glasses.
"Are you going to take it? My hand is starting to ache from waiting."
He spoke with a serious tone, devoid of any mockery or condescension. This made Ahmed hesitate for a few more seconds before reaching out his trembling hand and snatching the bowl—just as a starving cat snatches its prey—then quickly retreating to lean against the tree trunk, seeking refuge in its shadows.
Joe let out a light laugh, as warm as the fire crackling between them.
"Scared? It's alright; that is your legitimate right. After all, you are just an eleven-year-old child in a merciless jungle."
For the first time in a long while—and for the first time outside the embrace of his family—Ahmed heard a voice that acknowledged his fear without scourging him with ridicule. Joe's words flowed over his old psychological wounds like a cooling balm.
Ahmed looked at the contents of the bowl; it was a thick soup redolent of wild spices, with small pieces of an unfamiliar meat that seemed like a legendary treasure. He took the first spoonful, and in that instant, a rich flavor exploded, shaking his entire being. He hadn't tasted food in three days... three days of lurking death, from the moment the plane split apart, to his rebirth by the river, to his desperate crawl.
Only then did he realize how close to the edge he had been, and how starved his body truly was. With every bite, a lump in his throat grew until the first salty tear fell to mingle with the hot soup, followed by an uncontrollable downpour.
Joe spoke with a voice full of tenderness: "Cry, my son... cry as much as you wish. It is your right; you are still too young for all this weight."
Very slowly, as if taming a wounded bird, Joe reached out and placed his palm on Ahmed's head, gently ruffling his hair. Ahmed felt a warmth he had long missed—a warmth that restored his sense of humanity and made him feel he had value in this desolate world. He sobbed audibly, and between those sobs, words began to break free from the shackles of silence in his throat.
"My name is..." He started, then stopped abruptly.
A storm of thoughts swirled in his mind: "I am now in a place where no one knows me. I am not in my homeland, and I am not that child who was called 'The Rat' in his old school. This is a new world with new laws, and that means... I need an identity that cannot be broken."
He felt that the weak, cowardly Ahmed—the one who used to cry under the blows of his classmates—had fallen with the plane wreckage into the depths of the jungle. He had died and been buried there.
He raised his head slowly and wiped his tears with the back of his mud-stained hand. He looked directly into Joe's eyes, and with a voice that no longer held a trace of trembling—a voice as clear and steady as a rock in a deep valley—he said:
"My name is... Harten."