79. Lucky

   I think that evil is all around us, because humanity … what’s left of it … is all around us.  I used to think evil was a terrible person, like Hitler, or a scourge on mankind, like an earthquake that kills thousands and leaves many more homeless, sitting around fires in the middle of a dark and desolate landscape. 

But evil is not what happens.  It's what can  happen.

We are gathering here tonight  behind a deserted restaurant, trying to stay warm, huddling in front of a burning pile of furniture from the house next door.  I am nine years old, and yet I am not.

   The great catastrophe happened on Sunday morning.  I was dressed for church and not in my warmest clothes.  Tonight, the men around me at the fire are not acting like we’re on a camping trip.  They look scared.  They make me fearful and they haven’t asked if I’m all right or told me not be afraid, as they normally would comfort a youngster.  They haven't even bothered to assure me that everything is going to be all right, what anyone would tell a child. 

   I’m really scared that everything will never be all right.  Again, I’m not going to have any supper tonight and I  may freeze to death before morning.  My father is distant.  I think he knows something about my mother, but he’s not going to tell me.  He said my brothers are out looking for food, but I doubt it.  They’re too young to be out and about in the dark in this dangerous time. When he lied to me, he stared into the fire and didn’t turn to look at me.  I know that means something is very wrong. 

   Now, I hear them coming again.  What an awful sound, a tearing and scraping.  Screaming and fire everywhere.  My father has crushed himself into a ball, face buried in his knees.  I try to pull his head up by his hair, but he is rigid and locked up, shaking.  I want him to save me, but he won’t.  He is terrified.  He is as good as dead, I know, as I run from him, run from death. I wish with all my heart and soul to wake  and find this is a dream.  When jump up screaming I find it is indeed a dream.  I am so lucky.  But it is the last time in my life that I will arise from a living nightmare.  The rest will have to be lived and endured.  Alone.

 

Santana - Put Your Lights On