New Perspective

 

The darkness was closing in around me. It was hard to breath. The air was thick with smoke and ash. I couldn’t see or hear anything. My taste was at its peak. I could taste the acid on my teeth. Burning. Just burning holes in my teeth and slowly eating away the enamel. The burn was unbearable. The ash was burning to me to a crisp and filling my lungs and turning into cement. What a way to die I thought.

                No one can help me. I am alone. All alone. Everyone around me has already dies from this slow painful death. They were trapped. Just like me. No light, no breath, no sound….. No nothing. That’s all there was and is. Nothing.

                  Pain sheared through my burning aching body. My body felt limp and I knew it was fading away fast.  My eyes burned too. I kept my eyes sealed shut to try and protect them. That didn’t help much. The burns kept getting worse and worse. Now reaching the bone in some spots.  

                This trip was a bad idea. That volcano would never have harmed me if I would have stayed in Europe . But I had to see America . I just had to. The mountains were calling me. The fresh air! But I should have listened to my father. Coming here was a death sentence. Nature… I always have to be careful…precaution is always necessary when it comes to something so unpredictable and violent.

                I screamed and ash filled my mouth. The pain was… there are no words to describe the agony I was feeling. I screamed again. Maybe someone would hear me. I had hope until I thought of where I was. I was far away from civilization. I was in the middle of nowhere. No one could hear me.

                I began to cry. I would never see my father again. He would never know what happened to me. Never have anyone there to take care of him again. I pictured his smiling face in my head. That smile was all I had to remember him by. That was the last time I got to see my father… or anyone for that matter. Then I passed out and started to give in to my death.

                When I woke up I could breathe. This air was clean and pure. My burns were soothed and felt clean. My body didn’t feel limp any more and I could hear voices.  I could see the light through my eyelids.

                I fluttered my eyes and looked around. I saw my father and all my friends. I saw a doctor and flowers on my bedside.  

“She’s awake! “  They all said rushing over to me but being careful not to bump the bed.

I smiled up at all of them and winced in pain but kept my fighting up. I was alive. I had survived. I had beaten impossible odds. They told me how I was saved and how lucky I was. They cried and said they loved me and that I could go home in a week. I guess I had been out for a few months. They put me into a coma so I could heal faster and not hurt myself.

                The two people who saved me came to see me too. The two men said it was all in their job and I didn’t need to repay them. But I made them take two handkerchiefs my mother had made for me before she died. The said they would take good care of the handkerchiefs and cherish them with their life. I thanked the two men before they left and laid there thinking how lucky I was that they saved me.

                I went home and never left again. I never went further than two miles from my house. I took care of my dad until he passed on and I stayed in that same house where I grew up and became and old lady who wrote for fun and just published without payment.  I never told anyone about this till now and I learned that nature is unstable so you always need to watch it. That’s probably how you are reading this now…. It’s the last thing I ever wrote… my very last words are on this page.