Why Does The World Cause Such Havoc?

• Ashley Singh, Grade 8, Mary MacKillop College -
• Short Story
• 2018

Excellence Award in the 'Horizon of Dreams 2018' competition

There was I standing. Soulless, breathless, spiritless, hopeless. Other humans surrounding me, standing, some screaming, some crying, some on their phones, calling emergency services. Some running away, some fighting, some standing there, as clueless as me. I didn’t know what do to. I’d rather be kept as a life-time prisoner in a penitentiary, than see this trauma in front of my lymph body. There were bodies, on top of one another. Prams, strollers, blankets, teddies, all sharing the same space amongst the pile. Heavy, distorted, metal parts scattered everywhere like debris. The smell of strong plasticine and carbon dioxide with gas disseminated across the atmosphere.
Suddenly, I was confronted with complete darkness. I couldn’t move, talk, breathe, or see. However, I could feel a strong, muscular arm on my back lifting me and separating me from the earth’s 9.8 force of gravity. I decided to lose all the stress and the tightness of my body as I sunk into a man’s arms. In a jiffy, I became unconscious, being unaware of time, space, air and everything. Everything was no longer part of the list of my worries.
After some heavy sleep and unworrying conditions, I awoke to the nudging of a young lad in an isolated white room, where I was also accompanied by two cradles, in which I believe, rested two young, new souls that faced such upheaval events. Why does the world cause such havoc?
“Why, though? The trains are much faster than the buses!” Faria squealed as she debated with Father when the decision of transport was made. “Faria, you know that train transport costs 20 dollars per person!” he exclaimed, with pain in his heavy voice, I could tell.
We finally arrived at the bus stop, we had bags in each hand, tickets in our mouths, the hefty men carrying large backpacks, god knows how heavy they were. “When the buses are arriving, please tell!’’ Aunti Shabida bellowed across the line of family members and people who wanted to get onto the bus with us.
“She’s awoke, come, please, come!’’ he exclaimed worriedly. Suddenly, in came two ladies wearing masks and had gloves on, they must have been those… doctors, that’s what they are called. One, looked Mexican, or Cambodian, somewhere around that South America, and the other one, was White. “Should we give her anything?” the white lady gasped, as if she were almost out of breath. “No, Sarah. She looks much better than yesterday. I think-” She paused suddenly, in her tracks.
“Ah, here it is, isn’t it the bus?” Mummy said. I turned my head from my annoying little sibling and saw that we were being approached by a bus, made of metal, plastic, maybe painted, yellow? It was vaguer that anything like a stray cat or dog I thought. “Where is it going to stop?!” Papa screamed, and then. And then… All was gone.
“I think-” she peered over the bed and set her eyes into mine. “Is she dead?”