KD Stories With 'Jagga' Title 'A River Bank'

You can't sleep at night with a river bank

behind you, so you stay up

at night, half praying and half expecting a

flood, expecting the worst

but still hoping for the best, the neighbors

nearest to you have

moved, but you who is crippled with poverty,

you who have only your

life, you that have been through all the colors

of darkness, where do

you move to? Nowhere, the answer always

stare back at you just like a

photograph of a ten years old you that hung

on the wall in your room,

You didn't know about the flood issue until

last few weeks, when

neighbors start telling you about the atrocities

it has dealt them,

but its all like medicine after sickness, of what

use is a knowledge

if it can't save you? It is as useless as the

letter P in the word

psychology,

It has being a very cold Saturday and kaeco

were gracious with light

despite the heavy rain that fell throughout that

day, but fear of an

impending flood won't even let you enjoy the

light, music seems like

noise, so you sat there, doing nothing, with

sleep in your eyes, fear

in your heart and hunger in your stomach, oh

you were too afraid since

morning to even think of food, but you were

hungry more out of not

having what to eat than not wanting to eat,

things are hard for

everybody all right so you don't even want to

get into that now...

The flood started around 3am , but to be

honest, it started around

12am, it was out of sheer hope that you and

others just like you who

don't have any where else to go have waited,

hoping by some twist of

fate, that the flood wouldn't advanced, but

your hopes diminished with

every tick of the clock, the flood crept slowly,

an impending disaster

with a sense of humour, it took its time

advancing, like its saying

"what's the rush"? it covered the the concrete

slabs that serves as

bridge to the house, but hope is not the

absence of doubt, just the

overcoming of it, but there are limits to

everything you can overcome

and this seems to be one of those , so by 3am

you pack your already

arranged properties and join a procession of

people with bags on their

heads, their faces gloomy and despondent,

beaten first by life and now

derived of shelter by the flood, it seems karma

is paying you back for

a sin long forgotten, steadily fighting through

the water that is

already reaching their knees, 

the way you

all file out with an

unspoken accord reminded you of a word,

"Humbled"

You turn momentarily to look at the houses

that were about to be raped

by brown and salty water for the countless number

of time, even in the

dimly lit night, you can still make out the array

of old houses and

their broken walls, though mostly patched in

several places, they still

looked worn out from many of such flood,

turning back to the long

procession of people, you sigh, " a broken home

for a broken people".