Soon people will forget #AdeebFiles

I heard it again today, someone saying it in the café – 'soon people will forget.' The words hung in the humid air, mixing with the scent of sweet tea and the distant hum of a speedboat. It’s a familiar rhythm here, this cycle of outrage and amnesia. We get worked up, our voices rise in unison across social media and tea shops, demanding answers, shouting for justice. The hashtags trend, the conversations buzz. For a moment, it feels like something might actually change. But then time passes. The sea keeps its own time, and so do we. The ferries come and go, the fish get sold, the bills need paying. The sharp edges of our anger get worn smooth by the waves of daily life. And we wonder, deep down, if we are just waiting to be told a different story, a more convenient one. When a familiar face returns, when someone stands on a stage and says the right words, will we crowd around? Will we trade our questions for the comfort of a narrative that doesn't ask so much of us? It’s not that we don’t care. We care deeply. But there’s a fatigue that sets in, a suspicion that the game is rigged and our memories are the currency. We want to believe in heroes, in simple solutions, because the alternative – that the truth is messy and power is relentless – is exhausting. So we watch, and we wait, and a part of us fears that we might indeed 'turn into jackasses,' accepting a polished story because it’s easier than holding onto a complicated, painful truth. What does that say about us? That our hope is so fragile, or that our resilience is being tested in ways we never expected? Maybe the real question isn't about who returns or what they say. It's about what we choose to remember when the crowd cheers, and what we're willing to forget for a moment of collective relief. The sea doesn't forget the shape of the shore, even as it changes it. I wonder if we can learn to be more like that.