Ashes in My Pocket

A boy recalls the slow chilling transformation of his childhood under a totalitarian regime. It began with flags and ended with silence fear and loss. Friends vanished. Innocence eroded. Trained to hate to forget to obey—he survived by erasing parts of himself. But memories—of names of kindness of stolen humanity—clung to him like ash. When the war ended he crossed a fallen fence into freedom haunted by the silence and the people he couldn’t save.