Her Name

• Irene Yeom, Grade 4, Ironbark Ridge Public School
• Short Story
• 2022

Excellence Award in the 'Summertime Fun ONLINE' competition

Comfort, comfort was home. It was a name. And many more things.
If only those things were comfort, she had none.
She remembered her father going away, to serve his country in the great war. She remembered her mother and sister screaming as the bombs fell on their house. She remembered waking up amidst rubble and seeing her mother and sister. And her mother holding a letter. She had opened it. It had said, ‘It is with deep regret we inform you of the termination of your husband/son.’ She remembered running for a long time, not being able to read any more.
Her mother had been an author. She ran until the dirty sun began to rise, and she fell, exhausted.
Finding a scrap of paper and a blunt pencil was miracle. She wrote…
Roses have thorns, but thorn bushes have roses…
She wrote until dawn, and paper in hand, ran to the publisher. He was kind, but firm. He blinked and shifted his cracked glasses. “This…is a masterpiece! Say, would you be my main writer? Authors are hard to come by nowadays.”
But then the bombs came again.
The warnings screeched through the town. But she could do nothing but hide.
Every day shock and fear trembled through her body. Every night she waited for the next bomb.
And one day in December, her nightmares came true.
She heard the warnings first. She ran for the subway, but she could see the first bombs dropping. She wouldn’t make it. But she ran…
The girl opened her mouth to scream, but couldn’t, there was too much smoke, too much pain in her lungs, and she grasped for air, ignoring the rubble and debris flying towards her, wounding her. She struggled one last time, then everything fell silent.
When she awoke, the sky was starless. Only the moon shone.
Her lungs roared in agony as she tried to breathe. But she managed. She remembered what had happened. She was Eneri.
She crawled out of the rubble… Eneri sighed. She thought of her family, waiting for her in heaven, waiting for her to join them. But she couldn’t. She had had an opportunity. And now she just had to take it. She stood up, wincing as the cut on her thigh bled. She wasn’t a dreamer. She wasn’t a fighter. She was an author by skill and by heart.
Because whatever anybody else thought, or said, she had to pursue her dreams. A scrap of memory floated into her head.
A little girl, playing with her sister. A woman, their mother, calling. “Eneri! Melody! Bombs!” The mother picking up the smaller child. “Melody, run!” Running out of the house and tripping over, dropping the girl, stumbling out of the house. “ENERI!”
How was she alive? Her mother, her sister, were alive. And from the distance, her sister stumbled towards her. They didn’t have their parents, but…
A fresh, cool wind washed over them.