They sat just ten feet away from me
Three brave, humble warriors
Battle-tested, battle-scarred
Sharing raw, heart-wrenching stories

Stories like how they arrived
The first time
On a pitch-dark night
Mustering inner grit
Just to move a few meters
Through hellish, bombed streets

Stories like how they finally met them
Men, women, children
Children...
Shockingly malnourished, heavily injured
Limbs blown away
Children, babies, young adults
Being brutally killed every day!

Stories of how they did all they could
To race against time
To save every precious life
With severe scarcity
Of basic medical tools

Stories of hope and life slipping away
Where cruelty and misery rule

Yet there were stories of
A proud, determined people
On the Creator and faith who rely
Whose land is being flattened
But whose minds can't be occupied

And stories of those
Who were seen as beyond help
With limited resources
In the war-torn land
Who were simply tagged as
Nothing but 'Hopeless Cases'

As I heard their stories
Of horror, of running from place to place
I saw the eerie similarity and contrast
In how I live my life
Always running after life's mirage
Wrapped in endless rat race

And I wonder...
In HIS book
Am I not the 'Hopeless Case?'