If Nothing was a Crime
Fanni Doroti Polgar
They killed my daughter. Sofia was her name. Eleven was her age. This time last week was the day.
You must be wondering: who are ‘they?’
They are the people who stand so high that mothers like myself have been effaced in their minds. Their necks are so fixed in the position of a lie that they can no longer move below their own line of sight.
They are the people whose already pristine place of power I cleaned in exchange for necessity. I sculpted my back into the arch of their insulated city-centre home rooftops in exchange for ignorance. I transformed myself into the ghost of overtime to feed my Sofia a scarce meal of hope every evening.
Still, they did not take notice of the fact that I have a name, let alone a child.
They are the people who killed my Sofia.
You must be asking: what was their relationship with her? Nothing. What was their motive for her murder? Nothing. What weapon did they use to kill her? Nothing.
There was nothing.
She had nothing.
They gave her nothing.
Her scream, to them, meant nothing.
So now, my world is nothing. There is nothing; for my Sofia now is what she always was through their impaired eyes:
Nothing,
nothing,
nothing.