But You Can Never Leave

We are surrounded. There’s no way out. The men on loudspeakers shout for us to leave. I imagine that maybe our building’s on fire. Perhaps we should listen to the men on loudspeakers shouting. There’s shouting inside, too. My brother crawls across the floor and leans up against the wall, the side of his body pressing against mine. We sit against an interior wall, staring at the window that frames with sky in imperfect peace. I’m too scared to look out the window. But then I hear what kind of weapons they have. Firemen don’t carry rifles.

The first light of day is coming. The window to the sky turns from black to pale blue. Men rush around my brother and me. No one steps near the window. Howling sobs come from the heart of our building. I know my mother is there with the other women, but her voice is claimed in the anonymous cries. The men on loudspeakers are still shouting. I begin to wonder how the end begins. For now, this is not the end. We are in limbo waiting for the ground to give way. 

I hold my brother. He is not much younger than me. Mother would have wanted to be here with us. But she was told to go deeper in the building. I can hold my brother. My thin arms wrap around him. I can protect him. I can’t look at him, but I can feel him. I take his fear. It ripples through my arms and chest, like gas bubbles in my veins. I pump it all to my head, out my eyes, and expel it with my gaze. To the sky, I cast it all. To the sky, it can dissipate.

Light. Blinding. Pressure. Crushing. I fly from the wall. The grip on my brother slips. I fly through the window, my head cast up at the first rays of light coming from the day. I don’t know when I land in the dirt. I don’t know what has happened. But it is calm in my head. I hear nothing but the sound of distant feet on freshly fallen snow, gently pattering. Where once I was in my home, I have been expelled. I am a child of this land. If this is death, then where is mama?