Faith

• Tori Katsinas, Grade 6
• Short Story
• 2018

Death sat ready for me in every corner and hell was waiting patiently at my door. I lay flat on my stomach on the floor...waiting. Just like the last five years of my life. Although I knew it was useless, this war would never end. My Papa’s promise is a burden I will carry for the rest of my life because his words have formed the way I live. He told me that Somalia needed him and he promised to return. His unkept promise broke my heart, I couldn’t even bear to imagine that my beloved Papa was dead. I was starved and slowly dying. The wish that I made every day was utterly vile. All I wanted was for death to come and take me away.
Autumn fell and Winter arrived. The dust on the floor turned to ice, and the temperature of the air had dropped severely, but on went the fighting outside my front door. Every so often, I found a frozen bullet lying on the ground. Once I even found an axe embedded into the wall. On the coldest night of winter, I lay in my corner of the room trying to find warmth under a torn mouldy piece of old wallpaper, when a thought struck me. I didn’t have to stay here. What if I just left? If my Papa wasn’t dead then why hadn’t he returned? I tossed and turned every night trying to sleep but the thought of leaving consumed me. When Spring finally arrived I knew what had to be done.
I shrivelled in my corner of the room for the very last time. I had never really noticed how bare my little house was. The only thing that still remained was a small, wooden stool which I used to display my most prized possession, a picture of me and my Papa back in our old house in Kenya. I picked up the little stained glass picture frame with shaking hands admiring the beauty of the timid designs etched into the frame’s surface. Suddenly, something unthinkable happened. The frame slipped through my fingers and landed with a sickening thud on the rough stone floor. I howled like a wounded wolf, trying my best to pull the picture out of the wreckage. After countless bloody scratches, the image was revived from the mess. I turned the picture over and over checking for any damage but instead I found something extraordinary. On the back of the picture I found a message… for me. ‘To my dearest daughter Imani, the one thing you will need each and every day of your life is ‘faith’. It’s not just the meaning of your name. Always have faith, even at the hardest of times. Believe in yourself. Love Papa.’
I knew what had to be done. I walked reluctantly to the ravaged front door and with trembling fingers and sweaty palms, I pulled it right open and took a step outside for the first time in forever.