zoya_brar

Author's Note:

this is not a real story... the resemblance of the characters name with mine is a mere coincidence!

Six years ago.
Thailand

Thunder, lighting, fear, panic, even these words can’t describe that horrendous day. The day that changed everything--me, you, Thailand, India, everything. The day played not only with human lives but it played with the very geography of this world. Countries were re-shaped, maps re-made, leaving us all marked forever.

Many of you may be curious to know why today after almost 6 years I am going back to tsunami. What could it be that makes me scrape my wounds?

Let me tell you my story. I am Zoya. My name in Russian means life. How ironical that is.

I was only 13 years old when tsunami hit me. It not only hit my home and my country, it also hit my heart. It hit me where it hurt most. Tsunami ate up my parents, my sister, my dog, my memories, my legs, my dreams, hopes, aspirations, everything, leaving me with nothing but my body, and that too frail, scarred and unable to move.

For a while I remained in shock, not talking to anyone, not listening, not even living. I was in a phase between life and death, a momentary silence with nothingness. In my dreams I saw my home, my bed, my school. I even heard the music my mother so fondly sang. But when I got up it was terrible. Each morning I would close my eyes and try to go back to my dream land. Try to go back to what I thought was reality. But each time I failed and each time I cried even harder. The volunteers were worried about me. I could see the worry on their face. And I hated them for it. How could they just sit and worry when all that ever mattered to me in my life was bulldozed to nothing? When all that I had ever cared about just disappeared one day? They looked at me as if they felt sorry. And that hurt even more. Was I so hopeless? Was there no one who wanted to hug me the way my mom did? Without judgment. Was there no one who could tell me what to do? I felt helpless, stuck in a world of strangers, nice strangers, niceness that made me claustrophobic. There is a time in everyone’s life when you long for someone to tell you what to do. Before that day I was so sick and tired of my parents telling me what to do. But now suddenly I was missing it all. Suddenly I wanted someone to tell me what to do and just how to do it. My life had fallen to pieces and it happened so suddenly, leaving me with nothing but loss and regret. But life moved on. I could never erase the memories completely but they began to dim away. Even the fading of my memories wasn’t a comfortable feeling because that was my only connection to my past, the only connection to ‘me’. But I soon learnt to live with it. I was faced with life, which I realised was after all not a fairy tale. The path was full of thorns and my legs had given up. I became resigned and subdued. Everything in me was dead, even the desire to live had been washed away. Suicidal thoughts interrupted the living fibre in me. There seemed no end to what I thought was my ‘personal misery’. I started pitying myself. Everything I ever believed in shattered to nothing. I was convinced that I was not only alone, I was lonely. And the loneliness hurt. The solitude wasn’t ‘fun’ anymore. The pain wasn’t bearable anymore. The turmoil was killing me. It was murdering the very dreams that once kept me alive.

Then one day Anya came to my life and she changed it forever. What a girl she was! She seemed so sure of herself, so self confident, so much like a girl at my age should have been. Even tsunami couldn’t make her give up. Sometimes I think she lived in a world of her own. Her thoughts, her emotions, her feelings, her dreams... they were so unaltered, as if the disaster and helped her grow and yet she remained who she was. She was so unlike all of us. She never gave up. She cried, but never for herself, only for others. The only thing she wanted to hold onto was her dream to make people happy. She was the light of the camp, the hope that kept us going. I had nearly given up, given up on myself, on life, even on death. My attempts to kill myself had been futile. Had it not been for her I would have not been writing this today. She taught me to get up again. She taught me not to give up on my dreams. She taught me how to live alone without getting lonely. She taught me the essence of life, the beauty of death. Her words healed wounds that the others couldn’t even see. Her dreams inspired me to look for mine. Her smile made me smile. She was incense and she reached everywhere. She touched everyone, leaving them happier forever. She gave me back my life. She gave me back what I thought I had lost. She taught me that my soul was with me and I needed no one else. She showed me my brave side.

And then one day she went away. They say someone adopted her, someone in some foreign land. And there was never any goodbye or last minute hugs. But this time I wasn’t sad. This time I wasn’t feeling lonely. It hurt, yes, but it didn’t kill me. I just smiled at the memories and locked them in my heart forever. She went away, leaving me, but with dreams, this time I still had me. She had taught me what no one else had. What no one else ever can.

Six years has been long time, a very long time indeed. Everything has changed in these 6 years. I have become a different human being, with different dreams and hopes. But I have lived beyond my hope and fear. And somewhere inside my heart the things that Anya taught me will always remain alive.

But why all this suddenly?

This morning I opened my newspaper and flipped pages. It was weird but something in me was telling me to read the 14th page. God has his ways. The 14th page screamed – TSUNAMI DIES ONLY TO LIVE. The headline made me curious. So I started reading on. Just then in the corner I saw this little picture--A few children looking lost and lonely. When I looked closer one of them looked like Anya. But she wasn’t smiling. That couldn’t have been Anya. As I read further I saw this poem.

THE TSUNAMI
--ANYA
I am lonely…
I am homeless…
They say my parents were washed away…
They say something hit my home…
Something carried it away…
They say they feel sorry…
They pity my ways…
But do they know I am hungry?
Do they know I need space?
Do they care to wipe my tears?
Or do they just wonder what went wrong…
They say I am orphaned…
They say it’s all over...
But do they see what’s inside?
The heart where my parents reside?
Do they see the pain that will forever stay?
Do they realize my homes a grave?
A grave for memories?
Do they know my scary plight?
Can they see the shackles of my soul?
Will any medicine be able to cure?
The wounds that the water didn’t wash away?
Can they see the child in me?
The child that seems long lost?
Do they know I have been hit deeper than they can comprehend?
Can they bring me back what I want?
Just one warm night in my cozy bed?
Can they erase memories??
Can they make me live again?
And if they can’t tell them to stop making false promises...
Tell them to go away…
I don’t want to drink the water they give...
I don’t want to get cured...
I don’t want to live by memories alone...
I don’t want to live anymore...
But they won’t understand…
Tsunami will one day be a faint memory…
Disasters will come and go...
My wounds may get cured…
But what about the heart that’s marked forever…?
The tears that remain forever?

Tears filled my eyes. It was Anya, my friend Anya, the girl who never gave up. But reality was sometimes more bitter than fantasy. Anya had never really been as strong as I thought. She too had given up. She too had been sad. The difference between me and her was that she cried in solitude and I cried with everyone. In some ways maybe I was better off. Her pain never reflected on her face. But today as I read her poetry all her hidden emotions reflect across. She was hurt too. Yet she didnt let her pain hurt anyone else. I had not seen the pain in her. I had not seen what she needed someone to see. She wanted to cry too. But no one understood. So she took it up on herself to make sure that no one felt the way she did. I thought she was an angel. Wish I had realized that she too was a 13 year old who had lost everything.

Today as I read her poem, I feel sad. I feel sad for all the times when my own tears blinded me. When my own sorrow made me thoughtless, all those times when I should have stood by Anya but gave in to self pity.

I write this today, begging for forgiveness. This is my repentance. Today I tell you my story just to let the world know that each one of us has an Anya within us. The part of us that knows how to love beyond self, the part that teaches us to live beyond death. I wish Anya too finds an angel in someone who brings her back to life. Life is hard. And it teaches us many things. What no one else could, Anya taught me. She taught me how to live for my dreams, for myself and today she taught me to live for everyone else. Somewhere along these 6 years I had forgotten how it feels to care so deeply. I had no family, no friends, just a hollow hope. And something in me believes that today’s newspaper was Gods way of telling me what was important. 6 years ago Anya brought me back to life and she did it all over again today. I don’t know who she was. I don’t know what she was, but I like to think that she was my personal angel.

As I stop writing this, tears wet my eyes, thankful tears. I don’t curse anyone anymore. Each one of us gets our fair share. It’s what we make of it that matters!

aliceedelweiss

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thamior

the above pretty much did all the nitpicking which leaves me with the fun job of critiquing the actual story. I will admit it picked up slowly, but once I got into it I found it enjoyable, or at least as enjoyable as you can be of a story like this. It wasfilled with real, human emotion, and deatiled the thoughts of someone in realistic fashion. It concluded nicely and leaves one with thoughts, truly a great read, I did not waste my time

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Dark and Shattered Lands

zoya_brar

alice.. thanyou for that detailed critique.. i must admit that i was reallly irritated by the end of this so didnt get to re-read it.. all the things you pointed out make sense.. those t's are actually supposed to be in the next line! i will correct all this stuff right away, thanks a bunch!

thamior, i am so glad you liked it.. it makes me feel nice to realise that it made you think and in some ways affected you. thank you for reading always!

zoya_brar

alice.. i have made the changes.. thanks again!