The Soft Eclipse of an Encroaching Thumb

This is perhaps the saddest moment in all of human history.

When the entire weight of all the world’s tragedy lit, for long enough to matter, on the shoulders of one small boy. A boy who, thanks to his mask, was safe to twist his face into the unfathomable rictus of ultimate suffering: an expression we can only imagine, and only by imagining it, can we understand its true poignancy. A literal photograph would fail us.