Hey guys,
I attampted a belonging story
Let me know what u think of it
Home Away from Home
The ant crawled on its own pace, carrying the burden of ten times heavier than its own weight. Slowly voyaging with the trail of ants, this ant looked nowhere and looked ahead trying to keep up. So distinct this moving straight brown line, so distinct it appears metres above the ground. This tiny ant is so entangled in aligning with the group, that the world above and around becomes blurred. The existence of the colossal rocks of no importance, until that becomes a hurdle, a blockade. Hear the plight of this creature, as it cries, longs again to glue with the trail that has moved forward and long gone. Losing sight, left stranded, circulates around the hurdle until it fades into the unknown...
‘Anita, come see this!’, the astounding, happy voice of her mother’s echoes from the dirt walls of the house. She gets up to see why her mother was in such high spirits. As she entered the room, the bright blue and reds grabbed her attention. In the corner where two chairs that housed a table made by her father, laid two dresses.
‘Oh they are for me?’ scared to jump to conclusions.
‘Yes, yes they are – your father wanted to surprise you my little doll!’
‘Our little doll is no ordinary girl, she deserves the best and only the best. Anita, it is your wedding day, we want you to leave this house with such happy memories and happiness that when you enter your husband’s house, your smile becomes the light of his house’, Anita’s mother hugs her and brings her close to her heart.
Tears slowly fell down Anita’s cheeks, blurring her vision of the room she stood in. 19 years she grew up in this house, she saw each dirt slab put onto one another to build each four walls of this house. It was her last day in this house before she would have to leave. It was her last time where her feet would touch the hot hard ground, last time where her hands will hold onto the wall, last time she can call a place her real home.
Each step she took, Anita wanted to immerse herself in the memory, absorb herself with each slab that made not only the wall but her youth.
From crawling on the floor, her mother would pick her up, hold her in arms and lift her up to the sky and as she moved her around making helicopter noises with her mouth. Anita’s father realised her potential in standing on her own two feet before her, as he held her hand and supported each little step she took. It was this same ground she fell and got up and fell again. It was this same ground where Anita stood crying as she cut her finger, same ground where her mother ripped side of her shawl and tied her finger with it so it would stop bleeding. This was the haven where Anita played hopscotch with her friends, fading away her mother’s yelling, ‘Anita stop playing and come help me with cooking!’
Two piercing brown eyes stared back at her with each tear falling down as the one Anita shed from her eyes. This was the little square mirror her mother had bought her from the harvest fair. From the day Anita hung that mirror on the wall, she looked into it every day. Each day she saw the face change from a young naive girl to a young lady. This was the wall where her sad, happy, excited, afraid faces were reflected into the small mirror. This was the wall that absorbed all her anxieties and worries.
She walked towards the hard mattress, a bed they could not afford. This simple mattress was her divan with ears, whom she made it listen to her weeps, her cries. Closed her eyes, she would wish upon a haven where her father wouldn’t be out all day working, where it would not be hard to place two bread on the plate each night. Being her sole listener, this mattress was also her saviour against the world. The world of pain, hatred, war, blood shed. This was the world outside her home.
Opening the two wooden doors would make her enter this world, Anita would see the children playing in the dirt, running around with no shirts, where the old tyres were their favourite toys. She would hear the constant arguing of her neighbours, a husband and wife. ‘You eat that last piece of bread Sheena’, ‘No, you are out working all day, you need it’. A fight of love it was.
‘Bang, Bang, Bang!’
‘Anita!’, her mother cries out.
Pushed out of the way, Anita was thrown into a corner. She only could feel the force these 5 legs repelled as they marched past her. Hearing the opening of each door, she knew it wasn’ t the usual raiding of the houses.
‘Razhid, come out of the hole your hiding in. We come to get every penny out of you. We lent you money when you asked, now it has become far too long and not one cent has been returned!’.
‘Abu, please don’t come out’.
But Anita knew him to be a brave man, besides the poverty they had learnt to live in. They did not forget to be brave and face their fears.
He walked out, with his head held high and his chest out. He looked at Anita, then his wife and back at Anita. A blind person could have seen a father’s love for his daughter in his eyes.
The men stood, circling her father, pointing their guns at him. Anita closes her eyes, put her hand over her ears. Was this enough? Could this have blocked her from the mishappening that was about to happen? Surely it must have been.
Was it this burden of debt that would destroy her house?
She could not hear. She negelected to see. Anita feels droplets of blood spraying her face and clothes. Pushed again to the ground , still too afraid to open her eyes.
Anita slowly moves her head up, looks around. Immersed in the plight of this little ant on the ground, she lost her touch with the life around her. Soldiers bustling around her, with their guns pointed to the heavens; realise the true plight of this girl. She dwarfs herself to the scale of the ant, puts more importance to the cries, to the quandary of this ant. She looks at her blood stained clothes, rather rags they were now.
She was left a refugee in her own house.
