Khaled (12) travels on foot, with a wheelbarrow. Two years ago he was standing on the balcony waiting for his father to come home. His three younger siblings were building a ‘theme park’ with furniture. Register and fake entrance tickets included. Mum was teaching Arabic via some online platform to an 81 year old Italian guy. Perhaps the oldest learner of Arabic in the world. He texted her that dad had arrived.

Mum would see the message in a window next to the window in which she saw her student. Mum was the queen of multitasking.

He stayed on the balcony to look at the stars. Khaled’s favorite story genre is scifi.

That saved him.

His texts were being read. The bomb dropped. Khaled was slingered from the balcony. His entire family was dead. As were 29 neighbours and passersby. Khaled landed on bags of trash and survived.

What rescue workers named the ‘greatest luck’ Khaled sees as the unluckiest moment of his life.

There was not much left of his family to bury. After transfer to a hospital to check for internal bleeding he got put on a truck and sent south. Khaled did not attend even one funeral after losing both parents, two younger brothers and one younger sister.

He never got to see his bombed out home.

Never got a chance to pick up even one small item that perhaps had survived the bombing.

Now he does this weird thing.

He asks people who have also lost something for one small, cheap item of the person they have lost.

He has a whole wheelbarrow full of those items.

A toy purse.

A pacifier.

A plastic necklace.

Shoe laces.

A pack of paper tissues with characteres of the children’s movie Frozen printed on them.

A sock.

A broken pair of glasses.

A business card.

An empty make-up kit.

Three half-smoked cigars.

A pillow case.

Three blankets.

Five school books titled ‘my first letters’.

One tea pot.

When Khaled arrives in a new area he sets up his tent.

Sets up his altar.

A wooden plank supported by stacks of books.

People usually catch on without much explanation. They just sense what the items represents.

Some fall on their knees and beat their chests.

Some hug Khaled.

Many pray.

All leave the boy something to eat or drink, even the poorest of them all.

Khaled sits in front of the altar for hours a day.

He repeats his mantra:

‘Everybody was someone.’

‘Everybody was someone.’

‘Everybody was someone.’