The Silence That Almost Swallowed Her
Little Zainab had not spoken since the accident. Her mother watched helplessly as the child stared at the ocean, trapped behind silence.
Doctors in town offered diagnoses but no comfort. The quiet in their home was unbearable.
A neighbor suggested a respected traditional doctor in Old Town, known for calming troubled hearts.Inside his dim room, incense burned softly. He spoke gently, not to the mother but to the child.“You have been holding fear inside,” he whispered.
He gave Zainab a small charm, not as magic, but as a symbol of protection. He also taught the mother rituals of comfort: singing, patience, storytelling.For days, nothing changed.
Then one evening, as the call to prayer echoed across Mombasa, Zainab tugged her mother’s dress.“Mama,” she whispered.Her mother froze, tears spilling like rain.
Healing arrived not with thunder, but with one fragile word breaking through the silence.
