Only The Earth Shall Know

The sun rose over the hills of Mirpur, the rays lit up the city and clouds of dust swirled in the air as a little girl woke up. Meisha rolled out of bed with a smile, realizing it was the 6th of October and today she was going to perform as the frontliner in a play at school. She smiled fondly remembering that she had been originally confined to the role of a tree in her first ever acting gig way back in second grade but through sheer hard work and a lot of retries over the years she had finally reached this moment. She got up and stretched her arms but as she opened her eyes, it hit her. She looked around and found herself on one bed amidst a sea of many, her eyes searching for her mother. The day before, an earthquake of a magnitude of 6. 8 on the Richter scale had torn the city apart. Visions of the past haunted her vision as pictures of broken buildings, burning cars and lives ebbing away flashed past her eyes. She remembered.

 The Day Before

“Maa!”, she cried. The freshly whitewashed walls carrying her voice and the smell of paint through the house. ”Where are my socks?””Look in the cupboard, Meisha. Anita Di kept them there yesterday, ”Her mother replied. ”God Maa, Anita Di keeps misplacing my stuff!” she called out. Her mother appeared at the doorway smiling, ”Maybe if you packed your stuff once in a while, this won’t happen. ”Her mother walked over to the closet and pulled out a pair of socks from seemingly nowhere. ”Maa, how can you find stuff when it’s not even there. I checked that closet four times. ””It’s a mother’s magic. Nothing is hidden from us, ”her mother replied laughing and then kissed her on her forehead. ”Go now for school, you’re getting late. Your father has already left. ””Bye, Maa!”, she said. ”Bye Meisha, love you. Have a good day!”

She walked through the kitchen and into the hall. She grabbed her jacket off its holder when she heard a muffled thud. She turned around and saw that a book had fallen off the table. The table started rattling with all its possessions perched precariously on top of it. She could see multiple fissures on each of its legs. The paintings on the wall were treacherously positioned as they swayed from side to side threatening to fall off. One of the table’s legs finally gave way and her mom’s favorite vase crashed to the ground and shattered.

She ran to stabilize the rest of the table contents but she couldn’t cross the shattered glass. The rumbling intensified. She ran behind the sofa and crouched there, her eyes scanning the room for the sign. She realized her mother was still inside. There was no doubt in her mind about what she had to do next. She had to find her mom. She crawled as fast as she could towards the doorway unable to stand or run because of the trembling earth and her unsure wobbly legs. She couldn’t help the quiver in her soldiers as she made her way across the room. Only metres away from the kitchen door, she dared to stand as she would have to climb over a fallen chair to get through. Bracing her knees, her muscles tensed as she struggled to get up. But the earth would wait no longer and the ground shook and the wall collapsed.

  

The gas inside escaped and the area was filled with that trademark scent of LPG. She tried to find a way over the crumpled wall but was thrown back by a sudden explosion. The still lit stove had ignited the gas resulting in an inferno which caused the disintegration of the fallen wall into rubble and dust. The glass shattered and the shards went flying around the room. Meisha got pierced by a shard on her shoulder. She was in a state of catatonic shock!Somehow out of sheer will, she managed to crawl despite the clouds of smoke and dust enveloping the room. But it was too much!Coughing, Meisha fainted due to the lack of oxygen. She was unconscious before she could even reach the kitchen door.

The Hospital

The first thing she saw when she woke up were her father’s big brown eyes, once full of joy but now staring into her own with unbearable grief and sorrow. The man who would never let anyone remain unhappy had a deep sadness in his eyes. Meisha knew the only reason why her cheerful father would be emanating such terrible pain. Her mother was gone.

The House (Again)

She had gone back to the house . She had made her way through the ruins of a once busy city. Now, everything seemed to come to a stop. Anyway, a few more scratches and bruises couldn’t hurt her. Her father was wrong, she was fine, the hospital had not even kept her overnight, though staying the night at the safety shelter made her wish it had. The hopelessness and despair radiating from the others there, only made her feel worse. She understood their pain but she refused to accept it. She refused to accept her mother was gone. She had missed reciprocating that last ‘love you ‘ because she had been in a hurry. She couldn’t afford to believe she would never be able to hear her mother’s voice again, the one that scolded her, the one that made her laugh and the one that loved her and the one she loved. She refused to give in. She refused to believe it was god’s plan.

There she was, at her home or at least what remained of it. The place that her father and mother had built completely out of their own earnings with their own blood, sweat and tears. Being a Hindu-Muslim family in Pakistan occupied Kashmir was not easy and somehow within those wall any problems her family faced never used to matter anymore. They used to dissipate into love for their family. The fact that she had parents from opposing religions never bothered her and the people that it bothered, they couldn’t hurt her inside that house charmed with magic of her parents’ love. But there it was now a lonely door still standing with the help of its frame though the house had been destroyed all around it.

As if sensing her arrival, the ground began to shake again. A weak aftershock pulsated through the area, so weak that it couldn’t make a pencil quiver but strong enough to make that very door fall. Behind it were the remains of a house split into two. Was it the will of the gods or the hate of the people she wondered?

It was getting dark now, she had to get back to the safety shelter and her father lest he worried but. Just as she turned something caught her eye. Smack in the middle of the fault line running through the house there lay a small unbroken island, unharmed by the whole event present between the remains of her bed and the rubble of a once beautiful desk. On the island lay a book. A book that had not but a speck of dust upon it. It was the book her mother had read to her every night since the day she was born. Despite the fact that her father and her family had reiterated time and time again that it was useless reading a book to a newborn her mother had continued to do read it to her. It was the bond they shared, an embodiment of her relationship with he mother. It was a book written by a man in a time of war and destruction just like Meisha was experiencing now. It was a story of magic not the kind used by wizards but the kind in people's actions. It was originally the diary of Meisha's great grandfather and how he survived the Second World War. It contained his musings, his writings, his drafts as he toured the country, of his travel from village to village. It contained stories from her grandfather, then her mother's life. It was all Meisha had left of her mother but something that would stay with her forever.