A DEATH NOT TOLD

By Rolaiza Mimi Singayao

She carried bullets, stale bread and held the dying. She forgot her fears, cannot tell the time, got blinded by the light and darkness. She cowered, sought cover and ran.
She was taken, pushed down and undressed. Countless times. Her pleadings unheard.

She walked through blackened, ghost-like buildings. Dragged her feet through soot, charred wood and filth.

Amidst the endless pounding of her city, she heard the melancholy sigh of the lake and the angry silence of the streets. Her senses assaulted by the air laced with the smell of gunpowder, blood and flesh.

Hunger made her tongue fall back, throat painful and parched. She kept the fire in her mind and sang songs for widows, orphans, children and land. This she did for 48 days.

One day, after the rains, her ragged clothes got caught in a jutted rusty nail. A bomb dropped and sprayed debris pinning her to the ground. She watched motionless as her hair and skin began to burn. The pain was excruciatingly deep, her wails choked her. A gushing sound, and when she looked, there was a gaping wound on her chest.
"I welcome this death. Please, now. Not any moment longer," she thought she bewailed. Felt cold, light, sleepy but unafraid. A gentle pull and her body pleasantly receeded above. Into something tenderly warm and soothing. Like home.

The troops found her 4 days later.
She was a child 'war bride,' 13 years old, pregnant and unnamed.

END

Source: FB