What it means to have words—and to lose them.
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Photo courtesy Youmna ElSayed, pictured here with her husband and four children.
Prologue
Act One
The Speaking Part
The story of a woman from Gaza City who ran out of words. Seventy-two days into the war, Youmna stopped talking. (27 minutes)
We first heard Youmna on Al Jazeera’s podcast The Take.
Act Two
Toska
For years there was a word that Val’s mother did not want to use. Val sets out to figure out why. (22 minutes)
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Act Two: The 95
Reporter Dana Ballout sifts through a very long list—the list of journalists killed in the Israel-Hamas War—and comes back with five small fragments of the lives of the people on it. (10 minutes)
Act Three: Pickens County
Allen Wigington, former Chief Deputy at the Pickens County Sheriff's department, now magistrate judge, tells the story a soldier killed in Iraq—Specialist David Collins—arriving back home in Georgia to be buried.
Postscript
In Israel and Gaza, children are directly facing the fact that the adults around them cannot protect them. (4 minutes)
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Secrets
Why we tell them, and what happens after we do.