CONTRABAND IN HER POCKETS

She flew without a parachute—just a few stories and a name that barely belonged to her

She flew without a parachute, holding memory like contraband and exile in her pockets.
She was only nine. But already, she’d learned how to pack light: a few words in a foreign tongue, a handful of stories she half-believed, and a face she would try to forget.
There are children who leave their homes with ceremony. This was not that. This was the kind of flight you take when the ground beneath your feet has begun to whisper go.
She didn’t understand the politics, or the fault lines stitched between generations. She only knew her mother cried at night and her father had become a silhouette that yelled.
The plane smelled like orange juice and perfume. Her shoes didn’t quite fit. The man beside her fell asleep before takeoff and never woke up for the meal.
She counted the minutes with the clicks of her tongue. A ritual to make time behave.
She arrived in a place where only her name belonged. Where the sun came in sideways and everyone walked like they knew where they were going.
They called it beginning. But for her, it was the middle of a sentence that had already forgotten its subject.
Still—she stayed. Not out of bravery. But because she didn’t know you were allowed to turn back.