When I woke up, the air was dense.
Odour of rotting bodies filled the air. Carcasses were lying around
everywhere. Broken body parts, of animals, stray or pets, of traces which were
once full of life. The deafening silence made the screams, wails and
shrieks of yesterday seem all the more agonizing.
Charred buildings, wires, blocks after blocks of toppled buildings,
they stacked on top of each other. They look just like the charred meat stacked
one on top of after another. And another. So much so that tragedies are reduced
to numbers.
Wondering souls were walking aimlessly, looking for their loved
ones amongst the living and the dead.
Is this all but a dream? I spoke to myself. Just yesterday,
Ellison and I, we were the couple that made everyone green with envy, the model
of the lot.
Just yesterday, Anna was all but too anxious to see the new world,
kicking and tugging her mother's bulging tummy.
"Darling, your time will come, spar mommy the hard time and
daddy will dote on you all the more!" These giggles of joy are still vivid
at the back of my mind.
As I scanned the crowd in the mayhem, I tried to focus.
Woman, pregnant, yellow dress. Woman, pregnant, yellow dress. Where?
The overpowering odour makes me nauseous. It refuses to fade away.
Lingering, crawling into the senses, almost like a tough stain that sticks onto
the skin corroding into it. Woman, pregnant, yellow dress. The search
continues.
I clinched onto the only price possession that I managed to keep
from the after rummaging through the house. The watch with our picture pasted in
it. On the right side, a picture and Ellison and me in our younger days, all
radiant and smiling, as if we had the world under our feet and dreams waiting
to be built. Together. All the smiles were but miles away. On the left, an
empty slot. We promised to save a space for Anna.
It’s weird, a wave of calmness resided in me, as the watch now
keeps me company, and sane. At least I have a goal in mind, a person in search
for. I have never come to appreciate the meaning of “No news is good news.” Not
until now.
It was unusually quiet, so quiet it feels like a dream, an
illusion of sort. No one spoke, no one moved, a moment in eternity which
belongs entirely to me. Perhaps, I am in heaven? I pinched myself just to make
sure. It’s painful, yes. But who dictates that pain is not real, even in a
dream?
“Yee”, I could not be mistaken, for only Ellison calls me by this
name. I could not believe my ears. “Ellison! You know how hard I had been
looking for you!” I scuffled over and gave her, and our little Anna in her, a
tight squeeze. Yes, she is for real, never more so. “You scared the daylight
out of me, I thought I’d, touch wood. I’d better not say so, for words are
sacred, once spoken, makes you believe in it?”
There I gave her arms another squeeze. Warmth filled my heart and
we looked at each other as if we made up eternity. Our eyes met and we took our
peace in silence. I had always believed in the strength of silence. Sometimes, it conveyed messages so powerful which no
words could fill.
“Let’s dance.” Ellison pushed me gentle away from her. “Let’s
dance. Today is our 10th Anniversary, remember?”
“But now? What is worth celebrating, when death is looming everywhere…”
I am confused. Ellison is behaving oddly, has she gone insane?
“Let’s dance.” She persisted and I gave in.
She clenched my palms and rested her head on my shoulder. Ellison
stood in front of me, Anna in between the both us. A portrait of reunion.
As we danced, She humps to the tune of Sam Smith’s Stay with me. All of a sudden, the silence is no longer
jarring. Her soothing voice calmed me.
“ Ellison, who do you think little Anna will take after?”
“ I want her to have your brains, your humour, they are the reason
I fell for my man, don’t you know?” Ellison mused, and planted a kiss on my
neck.
“Anna will have your eyes, always brimming with joy, they’re
enchanting.” I said.
We danced on. For what seemed like eternity. Eternity. I wished
eternity has a limit I could work with. It was a scary time concept one loses
sanity in.
What an oxymoron. In the moment of grieve, I experienced tinge of
lightness. It just doesn't fit. There is no logic to it. Ellison next to me, Anna
next to me, alive. Smiling. The rest of the world in grieve and mourning.
“Stay with me.”
The earth shook. My world shook.
My world was swirling, almost as if I was a puddle of water flushed
down into the toilet bowl. And down and down and down and down it went. To no
end. Stay with me. Stay with me. Stay with me…
“The frantic search for survivors goes round the clock, following
Wen Chuan biggest earthquake in 80 years. The injured were brought to hospitals
in trucks and ambulance. The death toll has risen to 10,000 and the team
continues on the search…”
I lay awoke. The air was dense.
Something hard and cold was in my palms. The watch. I gathered my
strength to pull myself up.
“Ellison?”
She laid still, lips white, body stiff and charred. Ellison was reduced
to yet another statistic on any news
broadcast. An unfair treatment to a tragedy of my life.
Odor of rotting bodies filled the air. I heard the thin shrill of
a baby.
A baby, with Ellison’s eyes which overflows with joy.
(970 words)
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Far from 2500 words/ day target and already killing me...
English teachers would probably clench(?) at all the poorly expressed sentences where some doesnt even make sense. The idea is to just write and edit after completion.
