Benkum Art
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Same Wish

A dark, intimate scene in thick oil impasto: a single hand with warm deep-brown skin enters from the lower right, cupping a small lit candle stub at the rim of a cracked stone water basin; above it, an old brass tap is dry, a rust-colored stain trailing down the stone from where water once ran. The candle is the only light source, its warm glow catching the hand and the worn stone; the rest of the frame recedes into near-black shadow, the figure's face and body kept out of frame.

I already know what I’m going to wish for. I wished it last year too.

I strike the match before I let myself feel anything about it. One flame, cupped low, beside the tap that still hasn’t run in a year.

On September 25, 2025, Madagascar’s Gen Z-led protests began in Antananarivo over chronic water and power shortages. Soldiers joined them, President Rajoelina fled, and Colonel Michael Randrianirina took power weeks later. A year on, activist Felana Andriatahina says of the men now ruling: “It’s thanks to us taking to the streets... that they’re in power today,” she says. “It’s a betrayal.”

I set it down at the rim anyway, and make the same wish I made last year. It still hasn’t reached the tap.