Hi y'all!
So ... this is my first political piece.
It was an assignment for English. We had to write a response to the short story "Home" by Catherine Cole. It's about a man who is waiting and waiting for his daughter and grandchildren to come to Australia and escape as refugees from the terror in Bagdad.
This is the daughter's story.
To say the boat is crowded would be to say the Pacific Ocean is big. Or that Bagdad wasn't safe. Or that pomegranate tasted good. Or that she missed her father.
The words simply didn't encompass the vastness of the idea Aisha was trying to convey.
She pulled her girls, Hadiyya and Isra, closer, to make way for an Elder. His whiskers, which should have been the white fluff of clouds, were greasy, full of grit and dirt. The pockmarks in his cheek were clearly visible as he came within an inch of her. She pressed Hadiyya and Isra closer, feeling the downiness of Isra s three year old hair, the firmness of Hadi's small shoulder. She struggled to focus on these things, the reality of her two little girls, as she felt the orange rust dig into her back, the edge of the boat the only thing between herself and the marine waves. Aisha gazed out across the blue. She thought she could see the faintest tinge of something that might be land, and a surge of hope rose within her. She looked about her, searching for her son.
Adil was trying to lean over. His hands, young, unlined, clung on, supporting him as he bent over the flimsy boat, trying to come over far enough to feel the sea spray.
"Adil!" Aisha snapped sharply, "No! Come back from the rim."
Adil looked at her, insolent. For a moment. Then his face broke into a broad smile and in that moment Aisha saw her dead husband, his father.
"Yes Mama,"
" Come here," she said fondly, her fear of losing him abated. She beckoned him closer. He began to make his way to her.
And in that small, infinitesimal moment, the world shook. Aisha felt the shudder travel through her, quaking through her to her bones. An instant of calm. And then the boat, the only thing between herself and the marine waves, broke apart. Hadi screamed, and Aisha knew that she was terrified that the ground was disappearing from under her. Aisha pulled Hadi and Isra close to her, crying out for her son.
"Adil! ADIL! Hadi, please, you need to keep calm, please keep calm. ADIL!"
"I'm here, Mama, I'm here, I'm alive! I'm here!"
Aisha saw him. His head struggling above the water.
"Adil. Here. Here!"
Their eyes locked. Adil pushing his way towards her. She was still holding Hadiyya against her, she relinquished slowly.
"Hadi, I need you to grab Adil's hand, okay. I need you to do that."
Hadiyya nodded. Screams rent through the air. People dying. Drowning.
Hadiyya's hand closed itself on Adil's.
"Adil, hold onto Isra's shirt. Not too hard. We need to stick together. Stay calm everyone, please, it s important."
Aisha searched the ocean. For a rescue. It would come soon. Surely.
Aisha felt as though her fingers had frozen against Isra s wrinkly skin. Hadi was poking Adil, to keep him awake. They needed to stay awake, or sink. Aisha almost didn't hear the sound of the new boats through her own tiredness.
The new boats were not like their boat, now at the bottom of the sea. They were fast, and rubbery. Grey. A black stripe edging. Aisha blinked her eyes open.
"Here! Here!" She yelled, trying to grab their attention through her broken English. "Here! Here! Please. Children! Children!"
A hand, white, grabbed Adil. Then Hadiyya. Isra. Herself. Shivering she looked to her saviour. A woman. Pale skin. Freckles. Hair, bleached yellow, short around her face. Her face. Concerned. Serious.
"Papers? The woman said. Her voice though kind, was harsh in Aisha's ears. Nasal. Australian. "Papers? Do you have papers with you?"
Aisha's words of thanks died in her throat. She looked to the boat's wreckage. Her suitcase. Her papers.
"There," she said. Pointing down. To the bottom of the blue. "All there. Sunk."
Gone.