Ballerina

• Khia Whelan, Grade 12
• Short Story
• 2011

I am alive, but I am barely awake.
I am hurting, but I can hardly feel a thing.
My heart pounds as though it has been forced into contact with a thousand arrows of pure pain and torture. Is this what winning requires? Is it really all that necessary that I suffer the way I am? Staring up at the night sky, I watch the stars dance. They twist themselves into complicated patterns until they form the shapes of tiny ballerinas, almost as delicate as the air itself. Pliés. Arabesques. They move in such ways that make me want to lie on this muddy floor forever, waiting until they invite me to come up and dance.
But I can’t die. Not yet anyway. There are things out there I am yet to see, people I can only wait to become. I’m nothing but a mere child! Surely the Lord isn’t calling for me to come join Him in His kingdom so soon?
As the rain trickles its way down onto my face, I am knocked from my dreams by the desperate pleas of a tiny child, a sound that haunts even the heavens. Imagine that- a tiny little thing, still too young to count to twelve or spell the letters of his very own name, having his life taken from him in the blink of an eye! No one there to cuddle him. Nobody to hold his hand. I cannot even begin to fathom what this innocent little soul must be feeling. He wanders around aimlessly, stumbling as his little legs refuse to raise high enough for him to bound over the rubble that litters the ground for miles to come. I want to help him, I really do. But I simply cannot will the feeling back into my lower half. Either half for that matter. The only feeling that remains is that in the very tip of my pinkie finger. And even then I can feel it slowly draining away.
Not far off, a man kicks an empty tin can with such force that it frightens the child. “Blasted Pruusj”, he mutters, groaning as he loses the can amongst a pile of brick. He is right. Blasted Pruusj indeed. If it was not for them, a little boy would not be running around demanding to know the location of his Mummy. A grown man would not be kicking around an empty can, the only remaining purpose he can seem to find in life. A 16 year old girl named Eva Roos would not be lying amongst the ruins, counting the hours until the soldiers come and find her.
I feel my mind begin to drift off, and I cannot help but notice that the ballerina’s hand is coming closer. They want me to come and dance. Precisely the recreation I was taking part of before the bombs hit.
I don’t want to go.
But I know I must. I reach my hand towards the sky, taking one last look at the world around me.
A town I once called my home. A ballet bar I once held onto for dear life. A little boy crying out in joy as a woman runs over, scooping him up in a hug that could never be forgotten.
I smile as I grab for the stars. They are my stars.
And I am their ballerina.