The Brown Haze

A haze of brown.

A horrible, resounding silence, waiting below the ringing.

And the pain; far away at first, and then upon me all at once.

I know this place, but it is no longer as I remember. They never did like us. We speak different. We look different, and we pass down tales they do not understand. But up until last month, that Sunday, they had left us alone.

This is the culmination of that hatred.

I try to move my arms, try to push myself up, away from the hot concrete that my face is pushed against, but my limbs will not obey my mind’s commands. There is something causing alarm bells to go off in my brain, but I cannot place my finger on what it is.

Wait - Clara. Oh, and the fact that I cannot feel the lower half of my body. There is only a strange, cool sensation as a gust of wind sweeps by.

Clara.

Yes. I must concentrate. I see her face in my mind's eye: rounded cheeks, wide eyes full of life and of possibilities. A cherub’s face. Sweet Clara, who fills my every waking thought as any parent’s child should. If I could raise my head, if I could just clear my eyes, which see only that brown haze mingled with something red.

Things go dark once again, and when I come to, my senses have cleared somewhat. I blink twice. Good, at last, some movement. I still see only brown, but shapes become discernible: granules of dirt like boulders in my vision. The pain is yelling at me like a tempestuous child, pleading for attention, demanding it, but I block it out.

A finger. Yes, my finger twitches. My palm scratches against the dirt. I try to listen, for what I’m not sure, but there is only the ringing in my ears and the terrible silence beneath it. After what feels like an entire day, maybe it has been, I manage to shuffle my forearms beneath my torso, bent at the elbow, and prop myself up. I am still looking down, down at the debris I lay upon, but slowly I crane my neck, my body protesting wildly, and look straight ahead.

I remember sitting on the couch, holding Clara against me, watching the Viewbox. There had been warnings for days, but what were we to do? We had nowhere to go, no-one to ask for help, no-one who would take a mother and child like us in. Most of our neighbours had stayed too. As I said, there was nowhere for us to go. But still, I held out hope. Humanity would persevere; surely they did not mean to exterminate us. And so there we all sat in our respective government issued rooms, and waited for death to come to us.

Except I’m not dead. The brown haze begins to clear. Shapes form in my line of vision. And then there it is - a glint of gold, sunlight filtering through the dust, reflecting off of metal ahead of me.

It was on her tenth birthday that I gave her the locket. We did not have much, but I’d managed to collect enough Merit Certificates over the years - often due to overtime - to afford the necklace. It was a simple thing, really, just a thin chain with the little heart shaped locket hanging off it. Inside, I had folded a small note that read: Mama’s little girl. I would have liked to get a picture but it had been too expensive, so the note had to do.

The locket. Yes. It has to be my Clara. I try to pull myself forward, along the ground like a worm. For the first time, I acknowledge that the bottom half of my body is not working and I crane my neck to look behind me. The rice I had made for dinner two hours earlier pushes its way out of my stomach and onto the dirt in front of me. I do not look back again. Where my legs were is only a bloody pulp. My legs are gone. I swear I can feel my toes, but I know it’s impossible. The locket. Clara. I pull myself forward an inch, and then two. The dirt scrapes my forearms, and still, there is the ringing, ringing. I have to get to her. She is all I have. Forward, forward. I try not to think about the fact that I am dragging half of my body across the dirt-ridden landscape. I wonder where my legs ended up. Are our neighbours alive? It does not matter.

Clara.

A glint of gold, again, and I make my way towards it. The locket means Clara, and she is all I seek. I struggle through that haze of brown; my vision goes hazy, but I must persevere. I need to hold her once more. That glint of gold flickers across a small form, lying still in the dirt, covered in debris. My baby.

One inch at a time: I’ve made it. The small form that is my daughter has not moved, but as long as I can hold her we can go to the afterlife together. A trail of red stains the dust behind me. After the war things have been tough; Clara’s father went to the factory one morning and never came back. It was not an uncommon occurrence. Sometimes, when she speaks, I see her father in her face. She is all I have left, and I will hold her before I die. I must.

I am close now. My arms burn from the effort of dragging the rest of me along. Her small body is like a beacon of hope amongst the debris. I swear I can see the locket winking at me like a lighthouse calling a ship to shore. My eyes are stinging, and the ringing is a constant distraction. Focus. I’m almost there.

I reach out a hand. So close. My Clara, she will not go on alone. I spot a lock of straw-coloured hair beneath the dirt. But that cannot be right, my Clara has red hair. It came from her grandmother, a rare gift she always said. I reach for the locket around Clara’s neck and manage to clutch it in my hands. Through the brown haze, I peer at the chain in my palm: a coin hangs off it. Not a heart-shaped locket, like the one I bought for my baby.

It is not Clara. The body I look down upon is not her. I feel the life I cling onto leaving me as my arms give out and I hit the ground. But no - I cannot give up yet. I summon the last vestige of strength left in me and wrap my arms around the child lying prone in front of me. I think I am crying. I hold the dead child close to my breast and breathe in the scent of unspent youth. The child in my arms may not be Clara, but as I let my eyes fall close I think that perhaps there is another mother close by who has found my baby girl and is holding her like I hold this child. I will be her guardian and guide her into the next life, and perhaps, there, I will find my Clara.

Perhaps.

My eyes flicker open and I stare out at the brown haze.

And the ringing stops.