This flooding had slowly but surely eroded our lands over time, leaving the remaining soil poor and infertile, utterly devoid of nutrients. As someone who had survived solely from farming, this inability to harvest was nearly fatal for my family.
Abandoning my fields, I started on my way to the hospital in hopes that they had some medication to spare. Walking along the road, I saw the scavengers searching for food on the ground. They meticulously picked through dirt and trash with gnarled hands, taking anything that they could possibly eat. At the sight, I turned my head and walked faster, trying not to imagine myself in their place.
Instead, I filled my mind with thoughts of full stomachs and healthy
families, praying with all my might that the hospital had gotten a new shipment of medicine. These hopes were squashed as soon as I arrived. Standing outside the doors of the clinic were hundreds of people, some carrying young children and others so frail it was all they could do to keep their place in line. The air was filled with the sound of villagers begging to be given rooms or treatment.
"Please give me medicine! My daughter is only six, and she's been
swelling so much! Just look!"
"Will you give us a room and a bed? My husband needs to be treated!"
"Do you have any medicine left? My whole family is sick!"
The desperate people pushed and shoved in a frenzy, all struggling to be heard amongst the din. Knowing that it was hopeless, I turned around and trudged home with my head down. It was to be yet another day of starvation and sickness for my family.
Before heading out to go hunting, I decided to go home to check on my daughter. Recently, she had contracted some kind of disease and had been coughing and vomiting every minute she was awake. Tiptoeing to her door, I knocked gingerly, waiting for a response. When none came, I eased open the door and walked up to her bed. She lay motionless under her sheets, looking almost like a marble statue. Slowly, I reached out to tap her shoulder, before gasping in shock. The body was ice cold. What lay in that bed was no longer my child, but a shell of her-a mere skeleton.
Crying out in shock, I fell to the ground. Hearing the scream, my wife rushed upstairs and joined me in the bedroom. "What's the wrong?"
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