There was a time when a wound was meant to hurt, when an open gash was a sign that the body was still alive, still fighting.
But what happens when the body forgets how to feel its own pain? When the skin rots, when the flesh decays, and yet—there is no scream, no flinch, no cry?
This is what we have become. A society afflicted with an invisible leprosy, decaying in ways we refuse to see.
Once, dishonor used to sting. There was a time when a man’s word had weight, when betrayal left a scar that could never be ignored. But now, lies slip through lips like a second language, and deceit is stitched into the fabric of our daily lives.
Corruption spreads, feeding on the weak, and the strong are not those with integrity, but those who have learned to thrive in filth.
And yet, no one flinches. No one feels the rot setting in. We shake hands with the very disease that is consuming us, calling it survival.
Leprosy kills not just the body but the nerves—the ability to sense injury, to feel the warning signs of destruction. And so does this disease that plagues us.
Oppression no longer shocks us. Injustice no longer stirs rage. A child is beaten in the streets, a woman screams in the night, a nation crumbles under greed—and we scroll past, our thumbs swiping over blood like it’s just another piece of content.
We do not feel. We do not break. We have trained ourselves to be unbothered.
And yet, we call this progress.
There was once honor in knowledge. Wisdom was earned, not borrowed. But now, we feed on scraps of half-truths and call it enlightenment.
We let others think for us, speak for us, mold our opinions until our minds are nothing but disfigured remnants of what they used to be.
A society that does not think for itself is already dead. But what is worse than death? A corpse that still pretends to breathe.
It was the lepers who were cast away in ancient times, sent to the outskirts of cities, made to wander in shame. And yet, today, the truly sick walk freely, ruling, deciding, dictating.
This society was wrong back then, and this society is wrong even now. It doesn’t know how to exist and how to deal with life in general.
It is the ones who feel too much—the ones who refuse to let numbness take over—who are cast aside.
The truth-tellers are silenced. The conscious ones are mocked. The ones who scream that the house is burning are labeled mad, while the ones who light the fire sit on thrones built of ash.
Tell me, who are the real lepers? Leprosy does not kill quickly. It erodes. It eats away until nothing remains but a hollow shell, a ghost of what once was.
This is what we are becoming—a society that has forgotten how to feel, how to bleed, how to heal.
There was a time when a wound was meant to hurt, but we have become a leprous society that is rotting in silence.
— Sadia Hakim
But maybe there is still hope. Maybe the ones who ache, the ones who cannot turn away, are the last nerves still alive in this dying body. And maybe, just maybe—pain is the only proof that we are still human.