Tent City

Chapter 1

It seems all I've known is the canvas walls of my home, a tent in a sea of other tents and makeshift shelters of tarps, old iron roofing, wood, and cardboard. The memories of my old home fade with every passing day.

My family of four include my mother, father, younger brother, and me. We are cramped into a 4-person capacity tent. The roof is mouldy and made up of numerous coloured patches of various materials.

Both my parents are sick, they can barely sit up to eat or drink. Each of their bones protrudes through their pale, paper-thin skin. They are malnourished and sick with an illness that is rampaging through our tent city due to dirty and contaminated drinking water

They will die soon. My brother and I are not much better health, but my parents know that their life is coming to an end, so they give us their food rations. I try my best to gather food, but there is nothing but dirt and muddy water. Animals are rare now. They have not been spared from the suffering caused by war and the change in weather patterns bought about by the destruction of the environment due to this never-ending war.

The winters are cold, and the summers are hot. Many of us die due to exposure to these extreme temperatures, it's not only the lack of appropriate shelter that kills us, it's also the rampant violence, viruses, illnesses due to unsanitary conditions and malnutrition that kill us.

Even with the death and illnesses that plague our tent city, they, the others, still flock to our borders. Whole families die, and within days, another family has been allocated their vacant tent.

That's what my life has been like for the last 13 years. Travelling between tent cities, camps, decimated cities, and villages. That's what war has done; not only in my country but in almost every country and continent in the world. We all have to deal with the consequences of war, a war we did not want, a war that left us lost without a home.

While the very people who caused this war, the very people who benefited from war and the death of civilians and soldiers alike were safe, well-fed, and living underground in concrete bunkers. They are protected from the extreme temperatures, starvation, diseases, violence, and dehydration that we experience every day of our lives.

They destroyed everything, and they left nothing but dirt, dust, rubble, ashes, contaminated land, water, rot, and death. They created vast deserts that used to be forests, farmland, or bustling cities. They created wastelands unable to be used due to radiation from their weapons of mass destruction. While innocents like us were nothing more than collateral damage, not worth saving, and we were left to die in a world that is dying with us because of them.

They are evil, greedy, arrogant, prideful, and stubborn. They were given a status based on who had the weapon that caused the most damage, the technology they possessed, and who had the most soldiers under their command.

They were nothing but rich men playing games that ended with the death and suffering of the innocent, all so they could prove a point.

I hated them, and my hate festered like an open wound. I wanted them to suffer as we do. I want them to experience the pain of starvation and intense thirst, I want them to feel helpless, I want them to see the diseases and violence that rampage through our tent cities, I want them to feel the bites of the thousands of fleas, lice, and insects that spread through our homes like fire.

I want them to know how it feels to watch the ones you love the most, slowly die from starvation, diseases, and violence. I want them to see children barely out of their toddler years, bones sticking through their flesh, sores festering on their skin, some with their stomachs bloated, full of worms, zapping their body's resources faster than they can be replaced.

They will never see or experience the suffering we do. They're sheltered, safe, well-fed, and have the best medical care.

Not even a day after I started writing my story, my parents died. The charity doctors were overwhelmed by patients, and by the time they could see my parents, they were close to death, beyond saving. My mother died while the doctor was checking her over. My Father died an hour later, leaving me and my little brother alone in this fucked up world.

All I felt was helplessness. How could I, a teenage girl successfully look after myself and a four-year-old boy? How could I survive in this world of violence and disease? How could I protect my brother from harm?

I was already very underweight, weak, and stunted due to not having an appropriate diet for much of my childhood. My brother was close to becoming underweight.

My parents sacrificed their rations so that my brother and I would not starve and become malnourished and sick. By doing this they cut their lives short, for us. All so I can continue fighting for basic food and shelter while trying to care for my little brother at the same time. Sometimes I believe my brother and I are better off dead.

Ironically it rained on the day my parents were buried. They were wrapped in whatever could be spared; which included a mixture of tattered, bug-infested blankets, and old Hessian sacks, thrown in a big hole in the ground with all the others who had died from the various illnesses that plagued our city.

They were carried out by four men dressed head to toe in protective medical gear. They were a part of the charity organisation that was given the responsibility of looking after those in our tent city.

They included doctors, nurses, and just normal people wanting to make a difference.

Some of them were bunker dwellers, sent out to the tent cities and camps as punishment for petty crimes.

Some volunteered to work at the cities and camps to experience something different or to feed their curiousity about us, the surface dwellers. I found them entitled and so out of touch with reality they were ignorant of our suffering. Suffering caused by them and their ancestors.

The wars and fighting lasted for years. The first conflict was 50 years ago, the nuclear weapons and chemical weapons were used as little as 12 months ago, unofficially pausing the wars. Even though 12 months have gone passed, the suffering, death, and displacement of millions will last for generations. Not to mention, the war hasn't officially ended, so we're currently in a period of uncertainty and fear.

Fear that even the slightest argument or dispute will cause more conflict and more use of weapons that destroy the surface. After all, their wars will not be fought in bunkers.

The tears I cried mixed with the rain that pounded my skin and the ground around us. I looked towards my brother. He was holding my hand tightly, but I did not see him cry, I wondered if he knew that we'd never see our parent's again. I wondered what thoughts were going around inside his head. As we mourned in the rain, the gown-covered workers who delivered my Mum and Dad's bodies into the mass grave yelled through the pounding drops.

"We'll be back within the hour with the front loader. The mass grave is due to be filled in so that the bodies don't rot in the open and cause more disease to spread throughout the city." They said before walking away, talking amongst themselves, like my parents' death meant nothing.

We spent as long as we could by the grave, I cried. My brother held my hand and stared into the hole, filled with wrapped bodies, and he didn't utter a single word.