The Last Palestinian

He is not imprisoned.
He is not accused.
He is not denied care.
He is processed.

In a world that believes certain histories are finished, one man remains.
He insists on identifying as Palestinian.

The system is patient. It offers food, shelter, medical care, and assistance.
It offers alternatives. Regional. Former. Unspecified.
Everything needed to move forward is available, except recognition.

Because recognition would mean continuity.

As files circulate and committees meet, his case becomes an anomaly.
Not dangerous. Not urgent. Just incompatible.
While the system delays, time does what no policy ever names.

Told with the procedural coldness of Kafka’s The Trial and the quiet inevitability of Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go,
The Last Palestinian follows no hero and no villain.
It follows documents, meetings, polite conversations, and a bureaucracy that never raises its voice.

Written as a tightly compressed novella that can be read in a single sitting,
this is a story about erasure without violence, survival without recognition,
and a world that protects closure at any cost.

Nothing dramatic occurs.
Nothing needs to.

The Trial rewritten as a refugee intake database.