People standing in front of a collapsed white concrete building

Four weeks after the Beirut blast, a self-funded Chilean rescue team came to sift through the rubble for life. And in one day they accomplished more than the failed state could in a month. Thermal imaging, for instance, showed one small body curled up and a larger one beside it where the 24/7 in Mar Mikhael used to be, with the former registering 18 breaths a minute. It is difficult to fathom, the immensity of those short, labored breaths. How something so small could engender yet again a fierce hope, and need for it. But the people treated them like they were the last the country had and we stood, our feet arrested, anticipating life we knew was not likely to return. Nevertheless, we waited for hours, some of us until the dawn, some of us into the early morning as we held out for what could have been the final heart beat of the blast. And after the Chilean search team left, for reasons that are still unclear, though all signs point yet again to the army halting the search, the protesters suited up and took matters into their own hands. A flurry of hard hats and work gloves followed, fueled by the other lives that were lost due to a negligent and corrupt elite. Then, a blur of rageful determination running up the stairs adjacent the collapsed structure and appearing at its crown, ten of them perhaps in line as though ascending a small mountain. The people below frantically tried to coax them down. A crane was called. The army advanced, stared vacantly. The civil defense arrived. Flying water bottles crossed catapulted rubble mid flight. And styrofoam in place of rice showered us, a wedding ritual meant to beckon prosperity, from an unspecified person above. When we looked up, an unfurled Lebanese flag flapped where a hand should have been.