MH17

Life happens.

I watched the steam rise up from my caramel stained mug. The parallel strokes of white fumes seemed to set the tone for the day. The fresh air swept into the room and the birds basked in all the sunlight’s glory.

“Here are your eggs darlings. I’ll call you when I get to Kuala Lumpur, I have to hurry now.” The figure that was dashing around the kitchen came to a halt in front of me. She hurriedly brushed her honey brown locks out of her face, placed a kiss on my cheek and started heading towards the door.

“Thanks Laura,” I said and watched her as she walked towards the door.

Her freckles lined her cheekbones like stars sprinkled across the sky on a fine night. She was beautiful, stout but beautiful. However, over the years her posture had become worse, veins started to line her hands and the skin around her temples started to sag.  But all that changed when she received the phone call that landed her the opportunity to shoot Kuala Lumpur.

Laura, a photographer, had been offered the job to create a brochure for Kuala Lumpur. She had been invited to photograph the beautiful city and capture it’s culture and it’s diversity. Laura spent most of her savings as a teenager on photography school. She had poured her heart into it and invested her time to create a beautiful business venture. But the advertisements and business proposals didn’t work as well as we had imagined so she only received the occasional photo-shoot, which didn’t allow us live a lavish lifestyle. But each day we worked together as a team to save up as much money as we could to pay off our debts and to pay for our children’s education.

“You have to kill it!” I yelled, as she was about to slip into the cab.

Her laugh made me fall in love with her again after she replied with a “I’m not a murderer but okay honey,”

I slid into my normal routine: searching for new job opportunities online. Being a freelance journalist and part-time writer for De telegraf and--- gave me enough free time but not enough money to pay for all the hospital bills. Laura and I had been paying frequent visits to the fertility clinic.

We had been married for 5 years, all of which saw no children. IVF was our last resort and I could see it take a toll on Laura. But she was strong.  Her attitude towards life was tremendous and it was all because “God never gives us more than we can handle.” It was our motto. Somehow in-between all of our struggles she never lost the faith. She never stopped believing that Jesus cared for us and would always bring us out if we leaned on Him, and that was my inspiration.

I flipped open my DELL laptop and the bright rays washed over me. I found my way to the latest headlines: the Chibok girls were still missing, the pro-Russian rebels were fighting again, and Putin was still silent-nothing had changed.  After another hour or two of finding and applying to barely-known newspaper companies I settled unto the couch to watch some TV.

------o

My phone chimed beside me and I realized I had fallen asleep.  I unfolded myself from the human pretzel I had become and reached for the phone.

“Hello, Caspar on the line. How can I help you?”