This week I decided to share my water story with everybody. It's a completely fictional piece that I wrote for the application and not particularly eventful, but what happened after I wrote the story is what I found super eerie.
The story I wrote takes place in the Philippines and focuses on the destruction wrought by a typhoon - disasters Filipinos are not no stranger to. I wrote and submitted the piece on November 3, 2013, having no particular storm in mind and simply basing my story off of the many generic storms that have affected the Philippines. Five days later, however, on November 8, 2013, Typhoon Haiyan (or Yolanda as it's called in the Philippines) ripped through the country, killing 6,300 people with almost 2,000 still missing two months later. It devastated parts of the central Philippines, rendering cities such as Leyte into ghost towns. It is arguably the worst natural disaster to have hit the Philippines and is one of the most powerful storms the world has seen.
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| Before and after shot of the city of Tacloban (http://english.alarabiya.net/en/News/world/2013/11/13/Philippine-typhoon-Haiyan-death-toll-reaches-2-275-.html) |
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| (http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2013/11/aftermath_of_typhoon_haiyan.html) |
-Sarah
My Water Story:
Underneath
the bamboo roof, a little boy draws a picture. His almond eyes are furrowed in
concentration, his hands – one marred by a triangular scar – still learning how
to move the way his mind envisions. His brush is a crayon stub he picked up on
the road from school, his canvas is the brown paper his Mama used to wrap the
fish at the market.
Mama stands
near the fire, watching the water come to a boil. Some of the water she uses to
make the rice. The rest she uses to make the tamarind soup. There isn’t any
meat tonight, but she hopes the water will be enough to fill their stomachs
until morning, where she’ll use the leftover burnt rice to make coffee for Papa
before he goes out to sea.
“Anak, it’s time to eat na. Papa will be here any minute,” she calls
to her son.
“Wait lang, I’m almost done. Look, Ma, look at
what I drew!” The boy proudly shows Mama his little masterpiece. “See! The tall
one is Papa, the pretty one is you, and I’m the one in the middle holding your
hands. And see I even drew our house in the back!”
Mama
laughs. “It’s beautiful! But you didn’t draw hair on Papa! You know Papa is
very sensitive about getting bald. Quick, add some hair before he gets home.”
In a few
minutes Papa arrives, and they sit down to have dinner together. Papa complains
that he has more hair than the man in the picture, but he smiles all the same,
and they laugh and talk and drink in the soup that will have to sustain them
for the night. Mama tucks away the drawing in a beautiful little gold locket –
simple and elegant and shaped like a shell – it’s the only piece of vanity she
allows herself. As she is lulled to sleep later that night by the sound of the
waves near their hut, she keeps the necklace close to her heart, the picture
her son drew safely inside.
****
Richard
Johnson is drowning in water. Or well, it feels like it. He breathes in – it’s
all water. He breathes out – more of the same. His shirt is soaked in
perspiration, his hands slippery as he lugs his suitcase up the stairs of the
Crystal Sands Resort. The travel agent wasn’t kidding when she said it’s humid
in the Philippines. Ah well, he did say he wanted to get as far away from the
Windy City as possible, and this humid and quaint little tropical island in the
middle of the Philippines fit the bill.
He wanted to get away from it all,
is what we told his agent – away from the world of mergers and acquisitions,
away from the city, away from the suffocating isolation of crowded streets,
away from the messy divorce papers that had recently been signed and filed
away. No more thinking about her, the woman with whom he spent two decades, no
more thinking about him, the teenage son who blamed him for it all, who
wouldn’t speak to him – the son Richard was too proud to apologize to. No, this
trip was about relaxation and rejuvenation. As he pulled his bag up the last
step, a slight breeze wafted his way, the humid air bringing in the tangy smell
of seawater, the faint sound of waves crashing against the shore.
“Hello Mr.
Johnson. Mabuhay! Welcome to the
Philippines! You’ll be staying in Villa #4 – here is your key.”
“Yes, yes
thanks. Oh and um – could you tell me where I could get a cold drink around
here?”
****
The little
boy runs around the hut in the rain, playing tag with the neighbor’s seven-year
old daughter. She’s taller than him, and as much as he tries to outrun her, he
can’t, slipping on the wet sand. He laughs as he trips, and they go at it for
another round as the rain falls a little bit harder. Mama steps outside, brow
furrowed as she looks to the sky and the ocean mere yards from her door. The
air smells different, the water sounds restless, the clouds look ominous.
“Anak, it’s time to go in na. A storm is coming.” She touches the
locket wrapped around her neck, the drawing from last week still inside.
“But Maaaa,
it’s still early. Five more minutes?” begs the son.
“No anak, this is going to be a strong one.
Come inside na. Say goodbye to Ching
Ching.”
She follows
her son as he enters the house, giving one last glance at the sky, which seems
to be buried by the weight of the whole ocean. The waves move anxiously,
anticipating the storm that is about to fall.
****
The waves
are perfectly still. The water is crystal clear—salty, refreshing and inviting.
It’s a beautiful day and not a cloud in the sky – the perfect conditions for
forgetting his busy and frigid city life. Richard Johnson is still divorced,
his son still won’t talk to him, and his job is still mind-numbingly soul
crushing, but as he submerges his head underwater, letting the refreshingly
cool water surround his body, thought fades away and all that’s left are his
senses. The sea, warmed by the tropical sun, gently caresses his skin. The
saltwater in his mouth tastes like childhood, comforting, familiar. The rhythm
of the waves, softly pushing and pulling at the shore, lulls him into a state
of serenity.
****
The waves
are furiously pounding at the door of the hut. The ocean is angry, and the
water is rising and rising. They should have left. They should have run for the
mountains hours ago. Why are they still here? Mama and the little boy are
standing on top of the makeshift table. The boy is scared, and so is she, but
she refuses to give in to the fear, refuses to drown in the terror. She
comforts her son with stories about lands far far way, where the rain never
touches, the waves never reach. Papa should be there with them, but he was
fishing when the storm hit. They had been waiting for him but he hadn’t come
home. She touches the locket – a talisman against the water, against the
terror, against the life that has tested her again and again and again.
Now the
water is up to her chest. They can’t get out. The little boy is crying. Mama
tells him to please don’t cry, tells him it’ll be okay. The water won’t stop
rising. Mama holds the locket, her talisman, in one hand, takes the little
boy’s hand in the other, and tells her son to take a very very big breath.
Together, they take one more inhale, their last defense against the water.
****
Richard
breathes out, relieved at surviving the narrow turn on the bumpy, unpaved
alley.
“Excuse me, could you tell me what
that is over there?” asks Richard. He’s riding one of those Filipino tricycles,
a kind of taxi fashioned out of a motorcycle and an extra seat.
“Ah yes
sir. That used to be part of the barangay,
a small neighborhood of Nipa huts that was destroyed by Typhoon Ondoy a few
months ago. Maybe you saw it on ah the CNN in the States?”
To be
honest, the news was always filled with stories of this or that country in some
state of peril. Richard couldn’t quite keep track anymore of what disaster
happened where. “Was it bad, this Android, Onda, err, sorry what was it called
again?”
“Typhoon
Ondoy, sir. Yes, it was very tragic. Many people lost everything. Some were
lost in the waves themselves.”
They drive
the rest of the way in contemplative silence, Richard marveling at how the
gentle waves that rejuvenated him this afternoon and made him forget about his
own misery could be the same waves that tore those houses into lumps of wood,
casting misery upon its inhabitants. The driver drops him off at the restaurant
by the shore.
Before
going in he lingers on the beach a few minutes, admiring the kaleidoscope of
colors in the sky, the hint of gold cast by the setting sun on the trees and
the sand and the water and the rocks. The tide recedes, leaving a particularly
golden-hued little rock. Wait, maybe it really is gold? Richard scoops up the
tiny gold object, which he discovers is a beautiful little locket, shaped like
a shell, simple and elegant in its design.
He
struggles with the clasp, but finally opens the locket to find a little piece
of brown paper folded inside. Unwrapping it, Richard finds a stick figure
drawing of what looks like a mom, a dad, and a son – a happy family holding
hands. Behind them is a hut – not unlike the kind many of the people on the
island call home. Clearly this drawing meant something to someone, maybe on
this island or another close by. But some time ago the water had taken it away,
this little gold shell, taken it away from whomever it meant something to.
And now the water was bringing it
back, back to Richard. The drawing reminded him of the messages in a bottle his
son used to leave when they would vacation at the beach years ago. Back then
the water was a source of pleasure and enjoyment. His son would write little
notes, hoping someday the bottle would wash back onto the shore for a stranger
to read. Those were good times.
As much as the ocean had refreshed
and rejuvenated him, Richard really did miss his son. His son would have loved
to travel to the Philippines, would have marveled at how clear the water was
this afternoon. He would’ve enjoyed the bumpy ride on the tricycle, gobbled
down the mangos hanging ripe from the trees, laughed at the misspelled English
signs on the doors. In this moment, the golden little locket in his hand, the
setting sun sinking into the horizon before him, the waves softly nudging the
shore, Richard decides he’s had enough.
Enough running away. Enough hiding
from it all. Enough pride. The water had brought him rest and health and now it
was bringing him courage. It was time to face the pain, the shame, the fear. It
was time to call his son, to apologize for all the hurt he’d caused, for
betraying him, for abandoning him, for letting the years go by and giving up on
fixing the wounds. Richard had had enough.
The sun is below the horizon now,
and Richard can no longer see the water, but he can hear the rhythm of the
waves caressing the shore. Next to the restaurant he sees a little boy sitting
on the steps of a house, brow furrowed as he draws his own little masterpiece.
The moon casts a soft glow on his face, reflects off a small triangular scar on
his hand.
“Anak, come eat na. Your
Papa will be here any minute,” calls a woman from inside the house. From the
street Richard can faintly hear the soft sound of water boiling, can smell a
waft of tamarind soup in the air.
The boy looks up and smiles shyly
at Richard, running inside as his Mama calls him one more time. Richard smiles
back as he walks into the restaurant, thinking about his own son. Maybe next
time, they’d be there together, father and son, a family again.
Water may take things away, may
take away houses and crayons and loved ones and lockets; but water can also
give us life.
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