A Darkness In My Heart

• Athina Tsakalos, Grade 5
• Short Story
• 2015

News travels as fast as the wind in this town. Usually I like hearing gossip, but not this kind of gossip. This news hurt like a bullet in the heart.

I was playing in the concrete 'paradise' of our school (most wouldn't call it a school as we only have twenty kids all around). The teacher beckoned, "Jono" (my real name is Jodie but everyone calls me Jono). She said it in a voice that we have been hearing a lot of lately, the one that quietly screams at you that something bad has happened. Knowing what she was going to say, I just ran. Tears forming in my eyes, running to my safe place, I finally arrived home. I expected to run into my mothers warm arms, but instead I ran into the blazing hot fire. I could hear the muffled screams of my family. The screams dulled. I knew what had happened. I fell to my knees with a big 'thud' and tucked my head into my body and started silently sobbing. My world was gone forever.

After what seemed like forever, I felt a light tap on my shoulder. I responded and looked up at my house, not engulfed in flames any more but it was covered in a blanket of black ash.
A voice, a gentle voice, spoke to me like a angel from heaven.
"Go to your Aunty, Jono. They will come for you soon."
"Who?" I asked.
"The Klan," the angel from heaven whispered.
With that remark I ran as fast as I could to Aunty's. My aunt was adopted as a young girl into our family, then made to move to the white people's part of town. Isn't it funny how we accept extremes to live how others want?
It took me half an hour to get there. Usually it would take ten minutes but I stopped every couple of minutes and dived into the bushes, in fear of the Ku Klux Klan coming for me.

Almost exhausted, I was finally at my aunty's house and with one last draining effort I knocked on the heavy wooden door.
There, with a tear stained face stood my aunty, my dear aunty, in grief. Usually very bouncy and full of joy; seeing her like this tore my heart in two. Aunty Beth reached out and hugged me, her warmth should have filled my heart but instead it emptied it. She beckoned me inside. Collapsing on the couch I fell asleep.

I woke up and took in my surroundings and what had happened in the last twenty four hours. I sighed and told myself to accept what had happened.

I knew I probably couldn't get over this tragedy but I had to be strong, going to school wouldn't be easy but then again nothing ever would be easy again. Life would never be the same without my dear family. At least I was with my Aunty now