A Neglected Moment in History

A Neglected Moment in History

by

Trinity Carwile

I was walking home from getting water, the familiar ache tearing my muscles as I clutched the precious wooden bucket. Shielding it with my body, looking from side to side, I shuffled into the shack we called home, and set my burden on the dirt floor. My family's hopeful, loving faces looked at me and my package, and my little sister ran forward and grabbed at my frayed skirt. Her dusty little face burrowed into my clothing, and I patted her head. Suddenly, we were thrown to the ground in a heap with shrieks of surprise as the ground jerked beneath us.

I looked up frantically, a cloud of dust and debris obscuring my vision. Yes, my family was alive. Then the shack we called home began to collapse. Choking on the dust in the air, I called for my family and crawled blindly for where I last saw them.

“Oh Bonye, tampri, kite yo ap oke!” Oh God, please let them be alright! I swept my arms through the murky air, and eventually brushed against living flesh. I pushed those I could find roughly out the door, and lurched inside for more when our home really collapsed. I brushed a hand, but pulled away from the wooden avalanche, the earth still quaking beneath me.

I screamed, cleared my throat painfully of splinters, and continued screaming. Coughed up blood, but continued screaming. One finger, possible the one I had brushed, twitched once from where it protruded from under the remains of my hut, then became still. As all the devastation occurred around me, I thought that that final stillness, that final pause of life, was somehow worse than the spasms of human agony.

I crawled shakily to what remained of my family and clutched the little ones tight. Now, accompanying the rumble of the feral earth, came the sounds of horror and grief. Screams, wails, and whimpers rent the air. It was a tragic symphony. I felt an odd, warm wetness, and looked down to see a shard of wood pinning my thigh to the dirt street. A single rusted nail stuck out of the wood. The blood puddled around it, mixing with the dust to form a morbid paste, sick mud. Sick earth. The bloodied children huddled against me, whimpering like animals. And that's what we were, then. Beasts, surrounded by a hunters net, a fire, a fate they had no hope in escaping.

“Ti piti, li pral oke. Ayida gwo se ou se isit la.” Little ones, it will be alright. Your big sister Ayida is here, I murmured to my frightened silblings.

Just then a man ran by. The remains of his arm were on fire, and his eyes rolled like a panicked donkey's, the yellowish-whites gleaming in terror. His mouth contorted in an animal scream. This sight woke me a bit, and I looked around. Corpses lay scattered and limp on the ground. There were nearly as many bloody, unmoving bodies as there were chunks of debris. Some I knew, some I didn't. This caused no different feelings in me; all were dead. Dead, gone: mouri.

I saw a woman pull her child out of a wrecked house by its leg. She held the limp body in one ravished arm and wailed a primal wail, which was cut of abruptly as she sliced her own neck with a piece of scrap metal. I looked away, sick inside. There was nothing to throw up, anyway.

Even without looking I smelled the reek of human misery. It permeated everything. The stench of pain, death. I lay there, thinking hopeless thoughts that did not end with the tremors of the earth.

Food and water were hard enough to come by before the earthquake; and now I was incapacitated. I felt a crushing dread settle in my bones: Death was coming. We could only wait for it. We had no hospitals to get better in, not even a shelter in which to die. I heard other people stirring; moaning noises, mostly. I wrapped my arm around the mostly unconscious, bleeding remnants of my family and drug myself toward the sounds. When a few feet away from them, my arms gave out and my cheek slapped dirt.

No one would save us. No one here could help, and surely no one would come; who in the world cared anyway? We had no money, no oil, no resources. Nothing valuable or useful. This misery would continue until all of us were dead and unburied, our corpses baking in the sun. Thinking thoughts like these, I drifted in and out of consciousness. Each time I awoke, the periods of awareness became shorter and shorter, as did my wait for Death.

It was in one of the shortest periods of wakefulness, however, that I heard the unnatural howl of a helicopter. My hair whipped my face as the contraption landed not so far from our devastation. I saw flashes of white out of the corner of my eyes, heard snatches of foreign language. Oh, touris (tourists), come take your pictures and leave. Come watch our misery why don't you, I thought. Feet crunched on debris, growing closer and closer. They were wearing actual shoes. A white hand flashed in front of my face and I grumbled in pain that seemed to really hit me just then.

Then, to my shock, that hand extended to me. Near one of my brown hands. Were they actually going to help? A plastic bottle appeared in the hand, and the cold, clean surface pressed to my lips. I opened tentatively, then gulped for all I was worth. Water, dlo. So beautiful. Yet, against my will, I was still flashing in and out of consciousness. With a huge, final surge of will, I pointed to the little ones.

“Unghhh,” I groaned. “Tanpri, sove ti beb yo.” Please, save the babies. The Ameriken seemed to understand, and the last thing I saw was my family being carried in white arms to safety. They would be all right. Knowing this, I could peacefully close my eyes. So there is a God, I thought, content - and then there was darkness.

** Extremely over-the-top and melodramatic, I know. I wrote it in about an hour.  But, for some reason, my teacher liked it. That's why it's here.