창작과 비평

"My body's an ugly mess, isn't it? I know I shouldn't do this to myself, but if I don't eat my mind starts to think about it all again. I eat, then I throw up, and then I eat and throw up all over again. Then because I've gained so much weight all of a sudden my back aches and my knees hurt. These days my husband doesn't come home sometimes. Even I think my body's looks horrid…"
At the first town they came to the bus driver pulled over in front of a store. The woman had no strength left in her legs and her knee gave in as she got off the bus. Her husband was right behind her and grabbed her hand before she fell. The store was built into the front of a traditional house. A middle-aged man was sleeping in the back room with a fan running nearby him. Hearing people enter the store he slowly got up and put his slippers on.
Connected to one side of the store was a small courtyard with a water pump in the corner. The men sat drinking cold beverages and beer on top of a flat bench covered with linoleum. The women went over to the pump to wash their faces and put their feet under cold water. The water was as refreshing as ice water. She put her mouth to the pump and drank hurriedly. Some of the water got caught in her windpipe when she got some in her nose. As she coughed she remembered the events of a year before. When her daughter died she wanted follow right along. Right now she could barely stand the heat and the thirst.
There was a thick layer of dust on the store shelves that held candy and crackers and balloons and a toy trumpet made of plastic. It seemed the man who owned the place had already had himself a little to drink early in the evening. Every time he opened his mouth you were met with the unpleasant smell of alcohol. He spoke while putting the coins handed him in the pocket of his work clothes.
"Where're you all on your way to? It's been a long time since I've seen a charter bus."
The man surveyed the bus and its dirty windows. He saw exhausted people either leaning against the bus or sitting on the bench.
"Oh, you've been down there, I see. Business went fine for the last three years. Now as you can see this store is full of nothing but flies." When no one answered he started untangling the knots in his hair with by running his dirty fingers through it.
"It was quite something. You could see the flames all the way from here. But you know, right before the fire, around eleven o'clock, a little kid wearing yellow clothes walked right past here crying all by its lonesome."
"Did you say yellow clothes?" The women asked at once.
"That's right. I was sure it wasn't from these parts. I'd know right away if a kid were from around here. I noticed that one because it was wearing yellow clothes from top to bottom. It was walking towards the newly laid road down that way.
Parents surrounded the man as soon as they realized what they were hearing. The children of Morning Star Kindergarten had worn yellow clothes. The fire had broken out at about 11pm and the child the man was talking about walked past the store at around the same time. One of the women groaned as she collapsed on the ground.
"Can you remember what it looked like?" Asked a feeble voice.
"I don't know. It was dark so I didn't get a good look. I asked it where it was going but it didn't answer. It just kept walking and calling for its mother. It may have been a girl…. Just a little while later you could see columns of flame shooting up. I couldn't worry about it any longer."
The mothers of boys burst out in tears and leaned against those next to them while the parents of girls implored the man for more information. The woman started feeling dizzy and leaned against the refrigerator. For a brief second she could see the image of her daughter calling out to her while walking along that newly constructed road. If the man was right then one of the twenty-two children could still be alive. If it were a girl then it would be one out of thirteen. Whose daughter could it have been?
"Let's see. I can barely remember but I think it had short hair…"
A few of the women shouted out to their husbands.
"That's our baby! Our baby had short hair," said one.