Every Cloud Has a Silver Lining

By Mahathi Vinodkrishna

In a land far away, from which I have escaped and found solace, there is wreckage. Human

skeletons lie scattered across the floors, and across the unblemished musical instruments, blood

is smeared. For a land of music, it was awfully tranquil. Back when I was inhabited in this

graveyard, it was serene, the land of our dreams. Yet, it turned into our nightmare; you may call

it a battleground.

I was a young musician, driven by nothing but nature and simple sounds. The chirping of the

birds was a violin to my ears, the flute played by the silent whispers of the wind. At some point,

when I was skipping dandily to my home in solace and glee, I heard something I had never heard

before- a cacophony. The people were fleeing their homes with their belongings and children.

The last scene I saw was of praying. A lot of praying. I saw a pregnant woman on the ground, in

shock, and children being stampeded. It really irks me how, in the face of danger, we are but our

fears. The last sound I heard was a heart-wrenching scream. Then the bomb dropped.

My eyelids fluttered open. Mud caked my face and skin. I begged my legs to work and slowly,

but surely, they did. I walked very slowly, apprehensively examining what my beautiful little

town had become. A wave of serendipity flowed through me when I saw my dead friends

everywhere. I wondered if I was wrong about my analogy of selfishness in a calamity. I saw

mothers, cowering over their children, having taken full impact. Unfortunately, the children were

dead as well. My grief-stricken face looked at my still mother, father, and sister. Eventually, I

saw myself as well in a small shard of what was our bathroom mirror. The pain I felt was

impalpable. Petrified is what I was when I saw that even children had protected their camaraderie

from something they didn't know or understand. My eyes fell upon a couple who had tied

themselves together with a string, their closed eyes looking at each other.

At some point, I stopped. This pain would live on with me forever. Survivor's guilt was getting

to me, and I looked at the shard of the mirror again. "There doesn't have to be a survivor". I

thought.

Suddenly, a little bundle of ponytail peeked out from behind a bit of the wreckage. The small

stature of a girl came out.

My grief-stricken face softened.

"Are you ready?" I asked her. She examined herself.

"I think I'm fine," she said. Then she smiled. That smile was my everything at that moment. My

silver lining. I looked around one last time.

"I'm going to get you out of here," I whispered.

She smiled and looked at me, with eyes that somehow still held a spark of light. My flint had lost

its spark, so I decided to make sure she would never lose hers.

Years later, here I lie, in my grave. I did escape with my silver lining. We lived a full life. My

self-proclaimed daughter even went to school. Now she kneels above me, in front of my grave,

She seems pensive, but she never lost the colour in her face. The flint remains lit. She smiles a

small smile and leaves. I hope with the entirety of my heart that she will stop caring. She

miraculously has not lost that ability, my silver lining, and far across the ocean, in a land of

music, I see martyrdom in eyes that cannot see.

I see a single red rose in the middle of the wreckage.

By Mahathi Vinodkrishna