What I Can Do

“This puts me in a difficult position, sir.”

“…I’m sorry.”

The Child Welfare Foundation representative who had been clinging to me sank to the ground, as if all the strength had left him.

He probably hadn’t come to me expecting anything.

He must have clung to me out of sheer desperation, grasping at any straw he could find.

The situation was too much to endure with a clear head.

The children he’d been in charge of were still inside the collapsed building, while he alone had made it out. That must have made it all the worse.

That fact alone might torment him for the rest of his life.

I looked toward the collapsed stage in the distance.

Twisted steel beams and concrete...