FLOODED

Living as an orphan has advantages and disadvantages. Not everyone tells stories like I do because there's something that makes me stand out, that something is what brings me hear today so without further adieu I will begin.

My life started very strange , my mom who I thought loved me wasn't really my mother, told me stories and cared for me till I was five but turned out my mother died years back and then my dad hired a fake for a few months until things got serious between them but my father still paid for her needs until they got pregnant and my father only had money to take care the family in whole so the imposter left the baby with us. My father was depressed, I was just five so I didn't know what that felt like but I was kind of scared for my life because even a baby like me knows that when such a thing happens things will never be the same. From that day on things began to get worse. Dad got fired and could barely prevent his car from getting towed, and then he could barely pull himself together so he gave up and started drinking and abusing drugs, it was like he was trying to get himself killed.

We hadn't even named the little boy yet so I did the honors and named him BOB

So one day he just finished his daily alcohol and was heading out to a late night club. I didn't know what to say or do, at my age I thought he was heading to some sort of school club or something to gather and talk, little did I know he was going to get back few minutes after with guilt all over his face and heart racing so hard I thought I was going to take my last few breathes but he still loved us so he took us to an old blue house, both me and the baby then he told us that he loved us so much and explained everything to me on what really happened to my mother and why he was about to get IN trouble and told me to try as much as I could to keep the baby safe. Then he drove off and then an old fat woman came in and felt pity looking at our sad looking faces so she took us in and I wondered if my dad was ever going to come back.

In time the building I later got to know as an orphanage was fine but not okay ,I missed my dad, and I could barely remember the imposters face, maybe because over all the things I had been through anger would have only slowed me down. I didn't know it but I was already making things bad for me in the orphanage home, cause I kept asking ''WHERE'S MY DADDY'' and the adults weren't allowed to spank me until I was nine.

So I kept pushing it, after sometime I realized that I might never get to see my father again so I might as well make the best of my stay at the orphanage home so I tried to make some friends, didn't work as good as I thought though, so I tried making toy friends, which eventually led me to stealing paper, gum and pencils from the adults but I didn't know it. I was so good at it that I felt I would never get caught so the more I grew older the more my food was deduced so I thought about stealing some food and water at night time cause even water was limited as well, but I never thought I was bribing everyone else chance of getting their own share of food so the adults began to investigate and found stashes of food under my bed, unfortunately for me I was eight years old and was turning nine the next month but the person in charge responded to it this way ''why wait''. So on that day I received a whole lot of beating which made me sad remembering when dad gave me three things I should never do in life which was to never steal, lie or disobey, it felt like I had betrayed my dad and no one even cared to cheer me up. First time I had ever cried that much in my life, it was like trying to carry a heavy flood in my eyes but that wasn't the only thing that was having a flood. Instead of watching cartoons on Saturdays we watched the news which led me into accidentally ease dropping on the inspector saying that we would have to move to a different location that will protect us from a flood that was only few days away. I wasn't sure when we would have to move but I do know that we are going to be on a ship, lent from the government security enforcements to orphanage homes, but suprisenly we began the move on that day and they didn't give us time to pack our personal belongings that probably meant that the journey would be short. Oh and that wasn't the only thing that was surprising to me. I thought the ship would be huge but that just made me think of ''THE TITANIC'' so I was happy with what I had. Like any other kid that doesn't have a family to take care of you in the outdoors I was pretty excited but maybe I showed it a little bit too much cause an adult moved me to the back of the line, which was kind of fortunate and scary cause a kid I hadn't seen in years shows up as a hallucination in the noisy crowd, BOB ''My baby brother'' that I had not seen for three years comes in a shock. I had never been that scared and that relieved in merely eight years of my life. And seeing him there just got me way more frightened on the ''TITANIC'' situation. I felt some sort of responsibility on my hands so I wanted to be sure by cutting the line to check, and found myself sitting on a bench next to others at the shore and I didn't even get a good chance to confirm if it was Bob or not, I just got worse at my line situation but at least I got to sit and not stand on the line all day.

Just when the line was starting to get moving a supervisor told me to ''stay there''. So I stayed until every kid was on the ship, still waiting for someone to call me in. Things were starting to get scary when the adults got on and then I heard the conductor starting the vehicle.

So I ran, ran and ran, on the way I started blaming myself and felt stupid, being so far away from the ship and waiting to be called. When they were starting to move I started to scream but there was no way they could hear me until some kids looked back and noticed I was trying to get their attention so they told the adults but they were too far ahead already and couldn't see or hear me. I was alone, felt like running away cause all eyes were on me after screaming for a leaving ship that just left, around fisher men but, that just gave me an idea.

I noticed a strange looking man on his boat trying to get me to get into his boat, he was the last person I felt ask for help but I wasn't sure people would want to help me as much as the fisherman cared so I ran up to him and showed him few pennies that I had 0n me and bargained how much it was to drive up to that ship and get their attention, I didn't think he would actually agree to that kind of offer but he did and didn't look back but it was hard to see cause they were almost already out of sight, we needed to move fast.

Luckily over all the boats that were parked I picked a speed boat but it looked like it might have been stolen and what's speed going to to do in a flood.

I had to take my chances, though the man looked very strange, he had scars all over his face and patches of hair everywhere as well but I have seen worse looking men at the orphanage that come to poke our ears and our faces to know who is worthy enough to be their child so I hopped in.

I felt home at first, probably because the fisherman didn't speak to me and we were getting close to the ship. But unfortunately it started to rain, and I wasn't sure if the flood had just begun so the moment we got close to the ship I started shouting and waving but no one was in sight, the must have been in the lower floor, just the conductor was close by.

I thought of yelling louder but I was grabbed and blacked out.

Next thing I remember was waking up on a sunny day in that same boat with that same man. And so I said ''EXCUSE ME'' Then he stopped the vehicle and walked up to me in a mysterious way. The first thing he said was ''I COULDNT HAVE LET YOU LEAVE'' but other than that he was friendly. He didn't explain everything right away but he did afterwards by showing me the news. The announcer gave shocking news, I couldn't believe my ears

It says ''A terrible flood rained on our city, three days ago. A lot of people were killed and hurt mostly at Regina, which brings us to this, an orphanage home moves into a ship to protect from flood but the ship collapsed and nineteen kids were injured badly but some didn't make it while some of the adults are currently in a coma. This topic will be discussed further with the governor but until then stay tuned!''

I could barely understand the words that were spoken afterwards but I got the picture so the guy paused it ''I couldn't let you leave'' he said. ''I saw the condition of the ship. It wasn't going to last, you would have gotten hurt or worse'' ''Hope you understand'', he asked.

I didn't know what he wanted me to say so I just starred at him. Then he untied the ropes and apologized ''Sorry I tied you up but you kept sliding all over the boat

I didn't want to talk much to a stranger but it seemed he forgot the ''STRANGER DANGER'' talk . He gave me some food and it looked like we were heading for shore. So I said ''I want to see my family''. ''kid your an orphan'', he replied. Still I want to see my supervisors. ''There are all dead'', he replied. So now I am going to take care of you. I want my daddy, I said. ''And I will explain everything when we get to shore.

Few minutes later we reached shore and on the way I noticed the man which still hadn't told me his name was trying to catch some fish but I just ignored and calculated how far we were from shore.

When we finally got down he handed me a bucket filled with fish and took me to his small cabin the place was damaged the whole street was worse. The flood took away everything. He handed me the bucket of fish and told me to lay it on the ''KITCHEN'' floor (somewhere on the floor). Then he went straight to sleep so I picked a spot in the kitchen and laid. Few hours later I awakened and beside me laid a cup of tea and some fish. I looked around the house and he wasn't there, I grew scared until almost a second after he came in with toys and books.

I didn't have to say anything, he under stood the expression I had on my face and so he said ''Fine we would go find your orphanage family''.

Surprisingly we left to find them right away. cause the ''FISHERMAN'' informed me that rain was about to start falling.

We went into a TAXI wondering which hospital we should search for first. ''There are approximately three hospitals that are likely to have my orphanage home in it'', said fisherman. It took twenty minutes to take us to the first hospital but on the way I felt sad looking at everyone crying for all their damaged belongings. They were all fighting over what's theirs and what's not, total cayuse. The houses were damaged and cable wires weren't too good either, so I was pretty happy I wasn't even awake in the flood. Few minutes later we arrived and started to search. The taxi driver gave us few minutes to look for my orphaned family and get back to the car but to be honest I was looking forward to seeing BOB at that hospital, for some reason after all these years I recognized BOB back at shore. We didn't know who exactly was taking to the hospital from the ship so we asked the receptionist to give us all the names that were kept here from the ship on the news. The shocking thing was she didn't know, some people just dragged them in hear and asked for help but she said ''We could check if we would like.'' The fisherman probably did not know I was looking for BOB so I went ahead to tell him and he didn't look surprised at all, he just kept on moving. It grew obvious to the both of us that my brother wasn't in there and the guy didn't know my brother's face so who else would he be looking for. I was starting to think he was related to me in some sort of way but he looked nothing like my father, though I wished there was some sort of slight resemblance. ''Guess I would never see my father ever again'' I thought.

So we ran out of the hospital before our time was exhausted and the taxi driver took us to another hospital for thirty minutes. The journey felt pointless but I was really hoping to find my brother.

We searched the hospital but this time my orphanage folks wasn't even in there, we both felt disappointed knowing that we have to pay the taxi driver for wasting his time and not finding anything. A lot of people were hurt and damaged by the flood and I know that because they were lots of them at the hospital, if the strange looking man hadn't saved me I would have laid there sick with the rest of them messed up folks that I starred at on the way in the hospital.

The third hospital, the last one. This has to be it, I thought. Cause it was our only option. If my little brother wasn't in there we would be hopeless.

Finally we got there and things weren't off on a good start, we didn't think any one from the ship would even be there, cause the hospital was small but what I had learned from that past week was miraculous things can happen to little things so we went in. For a small hospital it was pretty crowded with angry folks, that gave us some hope but afterwards the probabilities started to die down so we sat down to rest, though I wasn't really sure we were allowed to go anywhere but the waiting room but as I was trying to look around for Bob the strange looking man began calling the taxi driver to start the car, until I noticed the same boy I saw back at shore on a rolling bed being taken away by a nurse.

So I followed her leading to blank room with no one in it, I couldn't even find the nurse and then when I looked back I couldn't find the fisherman from the speed boat . I grew scared so I started to run and run and run until I ended up outside the hospital with the taxi driver honking for me to get in with the strange looking man beside him.

I knew this would have gotten me in trouble but I ran back wondering were I was going but I felt something calling me and I would have felt bad leaving without my brother, remembering what my father told me before he left ''TRY AS MUCH AS YOU CAN TO KEEP THE BABY SAFE''. For some reason the taxi driver chased me all the way into the building and I felt so close to the intense calling in my head, to me he looked like ''THE DEVIL'' in disguise. But unfortunately I tripped and ended up tackled to the ground. When he finally picked me up I could feel the amount of strength and energy he used to get me all the way over there but when I looked to my right I saw my brother, I saw BOB. No matter what I said the guy wouldn't let me go and so I screamed and suprisenly drew the other strange looking man to my rescue and then we escaped the mad man and I took him to the calling in my head and there they all laid in a wide open room filled with nurses and some of my orphanage folks. Everyone looked at me with a simple glare of surprise then I noticed the nurse from earlier and went straight to her. With surprise the strange man picked Bob up first and kissed him. I didn't have to ask any question for him to say ''I am Chris''. That name didn't ring a bell so I just starred at him for some seconds until he mentioned he was my father. Hard to believe but it did make some sense. Then he explained that he went to prison for three long years while suffering hard labor and was free a few months ago looking for me. This was a lot to give to an eight year old but I was just happy I got the family back together, though, I was a little mad about bringing a fake into our home but I guess I would later express my self properly about all the bad things he did like stealing a speed boat but for now I have to enjoy it.

So I guess the lesson for you all to go away with is ''NEVER GIVE UP'' even if you feel discouraged or hopeless, cause God will always find a way.