The Proverbial Light

A single tear slowly streaks down my left cheek.  This is all the pity I allow myself as my breath becomes shallower and I drift in and out of consciousness.  I am weak.  My thoughts bleed into sleep and I have a hard time recognizing the few seconds that I am awake before I drift back into slumber -- only to be awake for a moment, and then slumber.

I try to take a deep breath -- but it's hard.  The muscles in my chest are deflated from the lack of nourishment.  I've given up trying to get out of here.  I will die here.

I've accepted that this will be my last few moments on Earth.  It's not the way I planned it; long, lingering, stinky and painful.  But the flip side to dying is that there is relief.

I'm too weak to have any self-deprecating thoughts about how I'm dying here cold, scared, and alone.  They don't matter.  Nothing much matters anymore.

I've taken to breathing shallowly through my nostrils.  It gives my pinned shoulder some comfort from the rise and fall of my chest -- and it passes the time.

And then I see it.  That proverbial white light.  It's radiant.  Blinding.  And so, I squint to accommodate the swift change to my iris'. Through the slits in my eyes I can barely make out in the distance two shadowy figures walking towards me, they're taller in stature than I would have thought -- and female.  They have long flowing hair.

"It's quite the catastrophe isn't it sister?"

"Indeed, sister -- the catastrophe."

They mumble to each other as they approach.

"This one is moaning -- she's alive!"

"Alive indeed!"

A moment later I feel the weight of the rock lifted from my right shoulder.  A moment after that water is being poured on my face, as soft hands brush my hair to the side.

"Quite the miracle to have found her in here,"

"Found her indeed!"

My body aches and cracks in odd places as I feel my upper body being hoisted into a sitting position, as more water is being poured on my face.

"Such a wonderful discovery!"

"Wonderful indeed,"

I close my eyes and let the cool water wash over me -- and for the first time in what feels like days, I open my mouth and allow both water and air to nourish me.

When I start to feel the blood tingle with life in my extremities, and energy sift towards my lungs, then brain, then eyes -- I realize that I am not dead.

That I am very much alive.

I raise my head to look at the two women who have offered me salvation -- when I see a third.  A short fat one, smiling and jumping in the background.

"Mia!  Yer iz alives!  Yer iz alives!  I iz finding dees sisters and dey iz here to help yers!"

I say thank you, in my heart.  My mouth is unable to form words. 

I drink more water, this time with a hunger for life -- my life, and all its possibilities.  And, as I watch Consuela dance a little happy dance awkwardly amongst the rubble and destruction in the car park, I am grateful for the sisters and their unlimited canteens of water, as I try not to think about the bodies I now see laying limp and lifeless all around me.