Limbo

Illustration by http://www.ghostbatart.com

Audio Version Here


Imagine it is spring. 

In your town, in your city. 

Think of what you smell. Fresh cut grass. Automotive Exhaust. Pine trees. Rain. It is sunrise. You get up. Get ready to start your day. You turn on the radio, or the TV or nothing at all.

But what you hear brings you comfort. Your favorite song. Your favorite cartoon. Or even blissful silence of the early morning. 

Life is good. Life is normal. It is familiar. That alone is comforting. 

Imagine it is summer. In your town, in your city. The smell is of fire. Something, somewhere is always burning. It is sunrise. You get up to start your day. The radio and the TV are all static now. And there is no silence. Explosions and gunfire are a regular occurrence. Life is strange. Life is alien. 

Life has become about living another day. You don't know what to do. 

The professional and semi-professional forces are at war. One of them, you don't know who, murdered the owner of a bakery near where you live. They held a gun to his head and murdered his wife and then his children in front of him. 

You heard his screaming suddenly stop in the distance when they shot him. 

You didn't see it. 

You heard it from your neighbors 5-year-old. 

You are not a professional soldier. You are a plumber. A doctor. A lawyer. A stone mason. A waiter. A hostess. A teacher. A dishwasher. You are the farthest profession from soldier you can think off. 

The bakery owner thought that with a rifle he could take a stand against one side or the other. He failed. And the side he gave his allegiance to did not save him. Didn't even show up. His body and the bodies of his family rot in the summer sun. 

The owner of an apartment building contacts you and asks if you have any money. He has a way out. It's ten miles to the coast, but you will have walk four of it because all the roads are either destroyed or have mines hidden in the asphalt. And it'll cost you 1,000 dollars. 

The mines are not intended for you. They were planted by one of the factions. The factions don't give a shit if you live or die. 

They are not fighting for you. 

They are fighting for power and control. 

You start with ten pounds of belongings, and get on the truck but the truck breaks down so you have to walk again but you haven't eaten in so long, it's too heavy. 

You cut it down to five, and the first three miles, you slowly throw away more and more. 

Eventually all you have is a photograph from your past that is too painful to look at. Everyone in the photo except you is dead. 

Against all odds and with many causalities, you make it to the coast. A child who had his legs blown off two days ago succumbs to gangrene and dies. His father, in his grief, take a pistol from someone brought along and kills himself. 

Everyone is too exhausted to be horrified. 

You make it to a country that is at peace. 

You are almost relieved. And then they turn you away. And you feel lost. Alone. Sad. Desperate. And you are now a refugee. A word you never though would describe you. Or anyone you knew. But here you are. In limbo.