Way Back Home

By Anoushka Poddar

I’ve been walking for some time now. I haven’t seen anyone for miles. Bloody footprints mark the red-hot, boiling tarmac, and the air is choked with black smoke. The bomb burnt off most of me, the shrapnel took away the rest. It hurt in the beginning, but now? I’m just numb. I don’t feel my bent, broken bones that snapped from the fall, I don’t feel the wood going straight through my stomach, I don’t feel the black, bubbling skin peeling off in shreds from my torso. All I know is that I need to get back home, back to Mum, back to Alex. Mum always forgets to feed him, and he always forgets mealtimes. I don’t know how he’s going to survive without me, he is literally the dumbest dog I’ve ever seen. So I’ll have to make it home for him. Plus, I need to give Mum the groceries. She’s always too busy to get them herself. She’ll probably go ballistic if I don’t get back in time for dinner. I stop and stare at the plastic fused to my fingers. Everything inside is ashes, and I can’t really make out what’s inside. It should be okay though, Mum wont be angry once I tell her what happened. The twisted clumps of flesh that used to be my face twitch, and I smile. I’ll make it home, and she’ll smile and praise me and call me her darling, special boy, and everything will be okay. She’ll take me to a hospital, and they’ll fix me, and everything will be back to normal. A little girl stares up at me from the ruins, beside the mangled remains of what i guess would be her parent. I cant really figure out whether its her mother or her father. Death doesn’t discriminate, I guess. Her wide, scared eyes lock into mine, and I see the sadness hidden behind them, the pain. But when her eyes drift downwards, all that I can see is horror, plain and unbridled. She scrambles away and I sigh, moving on. I can’t waste any more time.

Blood, deep red and viscous drips down my arms, my legs, my body. My shoes, clothes, everything burnt away in the blast, and my cracked, bleeding feet leave tottering splodges of blood behind as I walk. Debris litters the ground around me, and broken, apocalyptic buildings line the way home. Dust floats on the still air, and the vicious heat sets the air vibrating. Fire hell bent on setting everything aflame ravages the streets, and the stench of burning, rotting flesh hangs over the town. Still, I walk. I need to make it back. I have to make it back. Finally, it comes into view. Home. Ripped and torn and blackened at the edges. Everything blurs and the ringing in my ears increases by tenfold. Mother: her corpse lying mangled on the ground. Her face unrecognizable, and limbs teen feet away from her body. Alex: barely anything left. Just his collar, melted and seething, and ashes. What do I have to live for anymore? What do I have to come home to? I have nothing, and no one. I am alone. I am alone. I have nothing to do anymore, and nowhere to go. So I walk on, blood marking the trail. I walk on until I leave the destruction behind. I walk on until I am away from the memories of Mum, and Alex. I walk on until my shattered bones give up on me. I walk on until my lungs stop inflating. I walk on until I am and am not at the same time. I walk on until flowers grow around my corpse, and dust coats my lifeless eyes.

By Anoushka Poddar