July 3rd, 1800
...
They say I did not yell when the boulders fell upon me. The soldiers that came to rescue me, that is.
It happened when I was going to the market to buy some groceries like I do every day. My daughter wrote me a list of items to buy because I kept forgetting one thing I always... I forgot it again, probably nothing important. Rice, maybe, I do not like to carry that much weight, and rice is always heavy. Not only heavy, but also expensive. I heard the price was high because of the bugs ruining most of the crops and the rice that comes from outside of Burmecia is naturally way more expensive than the one produced in our very land, so I wasn't going to eat rice that day. It was going to be millet instead, no complaints.
I grew up eating millet, my whole family did. I was born during a period of famine that lasted from 1764 to 1772, when Alexandria and Burmecia were at war with each other. As a result of said war, Alexandria enforced a large-scale embargo to establish its hegemony around the continent, which led to the prohibition of any new or existing trade relations between our nation and the rest of the known world.
Eventually, our crops were insufficient to meet the increasing population's demand, which led to a famine like no other. "The price of a single meal was through the roof, reaching beyond the clouds", as my father used to say. Lots of people died in those awful times during civil outbreaks or by starving. I remember seeing all those skinny peasants lying in the corners of every street, how they no longer resembled living beings as soon as they collapsed on the ground while Royal Guards on duty had to contain riots everyday.
I'm not saying it was right to break statues or to set houses on fire, but we could not just live by drinking the rain's water, we had to eat something solid as well. The situation was normalized a few years after the peace treaty was signed, when Lindblum condemned Alexandria for weaponizing our starvation through the embargo. I thought things could never get any worse than that, and now I find myself, again, as a survivor of mass murder.
Ever since the invasion that took place months ago, I lost the movement of my legs, which I can still feel but slightly, it's almost like it's not even part of my body, my soul, my whole being anymore. They're still there, I can walk but it's painful at times, fine at others, and I'm still getting used to the wheelchair. I'll never understand some people who come in and say "It's a shame you're trapped in this wheelchair", and I'm like, trapped? I'd be if I stood in bed all day, but a wheelchair means freedom to me! I can go anywhere when I want to. It's a struggle when it comes to stairs, though, but there's always a kind soul who's willing to help me out.
The doctor said that I'm also suffering from partial hearing loss due to the explosion of the building, which damaged both my eardrums. I was very close when it happened, the last thing I remember is a very loud noise, then I stopped hearing for a while, it lasted two days, and now I can only hear very faintly, more on the left than on the right, so I advice people to not yell at me because I'm not deaf, not at all. I may recover my full hearing one day, but until then, it's very unpleasant, but tolerable to feel the sound of everything.
I tell my friends and familiars to be very gentle with me and to not treat me differently from the others because I am still myself. Like, I'm not at all different from my past self. I'm older, and yesterday was my birthday, I'm now 54. The whole family, or at least the faces I knew, was here to celebrate and I was greeted with the news that my grandniece was born the same day, she's such a beautiful child. So pure, so young... I wish Aisha many years of life and happiness.