Valli : Personal Journal of Valli Pillay, a Living Dead Pandemic Survivor

Entry 9

No one was quite sure what was happening. Videos by everyday citizens were popping up all over the internet, yet the mainstream media continued to ignore the issue and hadn't given the events a name. I supposed they did not want to look like fools. The dead were coming back to life; which network in their right minds would air such news? The Maryanne Casey video should have been enough to get them to investigate the weird things that were happening, but they weren't doing it. It was up to the people and they constantly posted online, whatever snippets they could find. The UWK put up videos and blog updates as fast as governments took them down.

At school, we talked about what was going on and a lot of arguments broke out. The religious said it was impossible for dead people to come to life again. One argument would lead to another. The events taking place were not random or made up; they were real, and they were bad. What I didn't realise, or anyone else for that matter: it was all closer to home than we thought.

I was a member of my school's volleyball team. We were in the 14 to 15 age group, the cadet category, and competed at the regional level. Sometimes the older girls on the senior team helped train us. I was close to Reshma, one of the seniors. Her dad used to give me a ride when he picked her up as they lived close to my grandparents. Reshma was due to take her A-levels that year, and usually you were excused off the team if you couldn't handle training and studying. She stayed on, acing her exams and kicking ass in volleyball. Reshma and her team were legends. They had won nationals two years in a row and had also done well in their studies. We younger girls looked up to her team. She told me she was taking Rémoire which was helping her focus on both school and volleyball. Most of the team were on it. When it was banned, her dad said he had gotten a big stash. He didn't see what the problem was. They had given it to Reshma's grandmother and her Alzheimer's was gone. Her dad felt it was a good thing.

We all found out what the problem was on a sunny afternoon in April, a Mauritian autumn of sorts when the days were warm and nights colder. We were out running and had come into the gym. Our coach, who was also the school physical education teacher, really pushed us. That day she was training some of the senior girls and had Reshma training us younger girls.

Reshma was showing us how to do a proper dive and roll. It was fun, and we were giggling and messing around until coach called from the other side of the gym for us to take it seriously, because as she liked to say, "In the game there is no time for giggling, ladies. Only winning!" Reshma also yelled at us and told us to pay attention. We were diving and rolling, trying to get the technique right. Reshma corrected us when we were wrong. She came to me and told me my knee was in the way and had me spike the ball to her.

"Gently, so I can show you how it's done," she said.

I spiked the ball, she dove, hit it, but didn't get up, lying on her stomach with her arm stretched out in front of her.

At first, we thought she was kidding around. I asked her to get up, but she didn't. She just lay there. I rolled her over. She was foaming at her mouth, her eyes were closed, and she started to convulse. Someone screamed. Coach came over and pushed me away. Reshma kept shaking as if she was having seizure upon seizure. Coach put the corner of her clipboard between Reshma's teeth. She bit right through it, breaking it.

"Call an ambulance!" Coach yelled.

One of the older girls ran to the office and called emergency services. Coach had us stand at the back of the gym. We watched helplessly. Someone brought a blanket or towel and put it under Reshma's head. The ambulance soon showed up. There was a doctor on the crew. They immediately leapt into action. It was too late. Reshma was dead. The ambulance crew took her away.

As far as I knew, none of us had seen anyone die in front of their eyes before. I hadn't. Dad came to pick me up; Mom and Vani were with him. They hugged me and asked me if I was okay all the way home. I wanted to call Andy, but I didn't. He hadn't been in touch with me in weeks. His Facebook page didn't have any new posts, whereas before he was always updating it. Mom and Dad tried to make me feel better by saying these things happen and maybe Reshma had not been well. I had a tough time believing that. Reshma was only eighteen and one of the fittest persons I knew. She had a six pack; all her muscles were well defined. Reshma was the kind of person who encouraged others around her, especially us younger girls. She pushed us to be as good as we could be. She told me she worked just as hard on her studies as her volleyball because she wanted to win a sport scholarship to study overseas. Her dream was to take the Mauritian volleyball team to the Olympics one day and win gold.

The next day at school, there was an assembly. Our principal was Mrs. Mireille La Joie. We called her Sans Joie "without joy" in English, because she was super strict with us and never smiled. At the assembly, it was a sad face that greeted us, not the usual furrowed brow and eyes that scanned for anything or anyone out of line. She told us Reshma's passing was a loss for the school, the community, and the country.

Reshma's funeral was held two days after she died. The hospital had done an autopsy, but we didn't know what the results were. No one asked. The funeral was on a Saturday, so I didn't go to tutoring. A lot of students from our school were there as well as girls and boys from other schools who had been her friends. Reshma had been a superstar and really popular. A lot of us cried. When I saw her body, I started crying and touched her hand. Even though she was dead she still looked tough.

One of the girls from her team, sang Queen's "We Are the Champions." I felt so moved and the tears just came by themselves. Reshma, our superhero winning the cup for the school. Reshma, gone.

Although they were Hindus and most Hindus cremate their dead, Reshma's family was going to bury her, as per her mom's wish. When the funeral cortege left for the cemetery, I headed home with Stephanie and Sakinah. A plane flew overhead. Rose Belle was right underneath the flight path leading to the international airport in Plaisance. Once the plane was over Rose Belle it took two to three minutes at most, before it landed. Planes passed by all day long, so we never paid much attention. This time Sakinah looked up and put her hand to her mouth and pointed. The plane, a Paris Express plane, was wobbling its wings side to side and the engines were making a screeching sound. We watched as it lost altitude.

"Come on!" Stephanie yelled and started running to her house which was close to Reshma's house. "We'll be able to see it from my place."

We got to her place and made our way up to the roof, just in time to watch the plane drop from the sky and hit the ground. Its right wing ploughed into the ground and broke off. The remainder of the plane did a cartwheel and exploded. We all screamed and there was this horrible noise as the sound of the explosion reached our ears. I covered my eyes, but I had already seen it all. The image etched into my memory. We watched the fire burn through what was left of the fuselage, as the fire service engines from the airport and Rose Belle raced towards the crash.

Stephanie went to get her binoculars. My friends had the latest smartphones and were Instagramming the whole thing. Soon our phones started to ring as our parents called. My parents had taken Vani to Port Louis, the capital city, with them that day. They told me to stay put at Stephanie's place. They were stuck in traffic. The police had cordoned off the highways to allow emergency services from around the island to get to Rose Belle. All our parents told us to stay put. Stephanie's mom came up to join us. We watched, along with the neighbours who were on their roofs too, as the emergency services went to work. From our vantage point we saw all the action. The fire services sprayed foam onto the wreckage. Stephanie's mom didn't know the carnage was laid out for all to see, as she hadn't looked through the binoculars; she was talking to their neighbour most of the time. If she had seen what we saw she would have taken the binoculars away from us. When it was my turn with the binoculars, I saw the emergency personnel putting out fires and pulling out bodies. As I scanned the scene a burnt body got up, walked for a bit and fell. None of the emergency workers saw it.

"Someone's alive!" I cried.

"No way!" Stephanie grabbed the binoculars from me. "They're all dead, Val."

"You're seeing things," Sakinah said. "No one could have survived that crash or the fire."

I took the binoculars from Stephanie and checked. Nothing.

"Yeah, maybe...."

Now I know I wasn't seeing things.