The barking of the pittbulls around me grew louder. But I could not hear them. I only held my son as close as possible, his faint screams almost silent to me--the little mouth open and working for air.
"If you two don't shut up!" the woman yelled. Her voice was a lot deeper than I had anticipated; her tall but slim frame did not match with it. With a grunt, she put her weapon away. "Shut up!"
Both animal whimpered in unison, their tails swinging back and forth. Their eyes never left my own--but they remained still. She glanced quickly over her shoulder, cursing over her breath, before stepping over towards me. A chill ran down my spine, but it quickly disintegrated as she began to fumble and undo her jacket, draping it around my shoulders. I didn't even realize I was shivering. Her eyes were full of questions---but she did not utter a single one, at least not yet. As she knelt down beside me, another fiery blast echoed in the distance, making us both flinch and look up.
"Give 'im to me," she said with such authority that I found myself doing so before I knew it. I wondered if she had many children of her own herself. With her small, but powerful arms she gently scooped up the wailing boy. As he began to quiet down a bit, she held her other hand towards me.
"Come. Quickly. We don’t have all day.”
I remained in a squatting position, still clutching onto the stick like an idiot.
”Come!” she ordered.
Although I tried to move, I couldn’t.
The woman glanced at the silent pit bulls, who had their long pink tongues wagging, saliva dripping from their open jaws. The brown one sat down and began to lick their paws.
"Put that thing down, will ya? Honey is going to think you're playing a game, and I don't want her running out here. Don't you worry Pepper either--they're a bunch of grumpy old mutts. They won't do a thing to you; they couldn't even scare away the old mailman that used to come by my place. Can you walk?"
I slowly nodded and dropped my stick to the ground---I attempted to try to sign a word to her, but she had already grabbed my hand and was walking so fast she was yanking me along. The pain between my legs was unbearable----blood was escaping past my thighs. The dogs walked beside us; the brown one's nose was wet against my ankle. As we came across a ditch another blast shook the earth around us, and once again, we had to take cover as the sound of gunfire echoed across the cold air.
”It’s alright, missy. Breathe.”
The woman's face was streaked with dirt and grass, but her eyes were calm, waiting. After a moment of waiting, she abruptly grabbed my wrist again and pulled me forward. My instincts told me to run due to the lack of the scar on her face, but I so badly wanted to lie down that I hardly cared where she was taking me. We were deeper in the trees now--a few had been burning, but most had their leaves intact. Every few miles it was the same thing---stop and wait, stop and wait. Once we passed a ditch and a small shelter made of sticks and leaves came into view did she finally let go of my hand. She was out of breath---and as I gestured for my son, she gave me to him.
To my surprise, he was fast asleep despite all the noise that had been in the air—I guess he did take quite well to strangers.
"Please, do you have any water?" I weakly signed with my fingers, feeling my face burn up. "Please, some water."
It took her a little while to understand, but she retreated into the trees and came back with a canteen filled to the brim. I gulped it down so quickly I nearly choked on it all, but its coldness against my throat made the dizziness go away. As another wave of exhaustion came over me, the woman knelt down and placed her hands on my shoulders. My eyes were droopy. Both dogs lazily laid down in the shade, their tongues hanging out probably due to exhaustion.
"Hey," she ordered, snapping her fingertips. "Stay with me now. There’s a couple things I need to know from you, missy.”
I nodded, not liking how she kept gazing at the K shaped scar on my left cheek.
"You coming from up north? That's where I see most of 'em go. When they manage to leave the security wards. Sometimes they travel in groups." She studied my bloodied, ragged clothes. "Hardly alive, though. You from up north?"
I shook my head.
The woman frowned and raised my blistered bare feet onto her lap. I winced in pain and tried to reach out, but she roughly slapped my hand away and began to massage them.
“Don’t you fight me,” she scolded. “Don’t tell me you’ve been walking on these this whole time. No wonder your legs gave out on ya. Now listen. I’m going to get a basin and let these hooves soak for a little while. Get a little circulation in them. I don’t like people who babble too much about things anyway. You real good at listening.”
I stared at her, before slumping down against the ground. Despite the stubbornness in her eyes, a determination was buried underneath them. Noticing the blood caked on my skirts, she pulled them up and, silently, began to clean up the mess on my legs with wet rags. When she spoke again, her tone was quite soft.
“You just had ‘im?”
I nodded.
She grunted, then suddenly stood up, before rushing to her shelter. When she returned, she had a clean shift bundled up around arms. Far too fatigued to even react, she helped me pull off my bloodied dress and slipped the material over my head, which was surprisingly smooth and cool against my skin. Kneeling down in front of me, she raised on of my legs and placed it on her lap.
"You better get away from these parts. Don't you have any common sense, wandering out here?" The woman sighed, rubbing my left bare foot. A fly landed on top of her head. "This is no place for you and a newborn. You ought to know better.”
She kept mumbling all sorts of things as she moved onto my other foot. Not waiting for an answer, she helped me stand up and walk towards her shelter. I didn't even wait for her to tell me to lie down on her bed---a soft patch of moss, grass, hay. I would tell her I was going to find my husband, to get back to our home in Selva. But then I wasn’t so sure—given how she was a civilian.
But this strange woman's face was calm; not surprised. She gently adjusted my sleeping boy's head just right against my chest, his heartbeat soft against mine. His tiny palms pressed on my skin , and I placed a soft kiss on his damp head, inhaling his smell. I drew down the shift to expose one of my breasts—-tender and full of milk—in case he woke up hungry. The sensation of a blanket placed beneath us made me slowly slip away. My eyelids grew heavy.
I think she said more, perhaps asked a question that I did not know how to answer. But she disappeared, just like everything else did in front of me.
* * * * * * * *
The sound of grunting and wheezing filled the air.
I blinked and looked around in panic, trying to understand how I had arrived at this place. I was in a wheat field—it was hot and sunny. The sky was very clear, not a cloud in the sky. The stalks swayed in rhythm with the dry wind, and I focused on the one room shack that remained in front of me. It was a lot cleaner, with much more room, but it had fallen into such a state of disrepair that it looked as if it could be toppled over by a gust of wind, due to its lopsided structure and broken, slanted roof with only a few pieces of clay tile hanging on top.
Brown and white chickens clucked and pecked at the dirt ground below, while impatient hogs buried their large wet snouts in the wooden feeding troughs, gray slop spilling on the sides. A small garden was visible on the side of the house, where lumpy orange squash and cucumbers were visible under the yellowed plants that had managed to break their way through the surface of the dried earth. I rushed past their gate, running aimlessly, hoping to spot whoever lived here and ask them for directions.
Under a shriveled mango tree, laid a small, unmarked grave, next to some of its bruised, brown fruit that had fallen to the ground. Its smashed acres were a breeding ground for hungry birds and tiny white maggots. A robin landed on the curved left side of a cracked stone and burst into a loud song.
When I moved, I somehow felt lighter against the broken and split stalks of wheat. Many had been layered and placed against each other, bundled and tied tightly together with a thin piece of straw. A figure was bent over, drenched in sweat and covered in filth—barefooted with bits of straw stuck in their hair. Their arms yanked and uprooted the stubborn plants with a certain kind of speed, thrashing violently with a tool. When they finally stood upright, I could see it was a child—a skinny boy who didn’t look much older than sixteen. He was small for his age, and looked like he could snap into two, but quite adjusted from what appeared after a period of hard labor. With a swift motion, he lifted up a heavy bundle over his shoulder and carried it towards the other.
As he cleared out another row and gathered up more of the fallen wheat, I took a step forward, wondering if he could hear or see me. The moment he turned around and slowly walked past me, I was able to catch a glimpse his face, and it startled me. Gone were his pale white hair, the round, boyish features, including the sparkle and joy in the eyes I saw when he had teased and played games with the little girl. These features been replaced with a thin, hard line for a mouth, sunken, hollowed out cheeks, and a certain quietness in his dark blue eyes that deeply unnerved me.
His hair appeared to be more yellow than before; it was a sickly blonde, bleached to the harsh exposure of the sun. Not once did he make eye contact with me, and as his shoulder went straight through my arm when he passed through me, I attempted to make sense of my surroundings. He had gotten a lot taller, although his sunburned skin had a deep tan.
Dark circles were under his eyes. He hoisted up a slop bucket and dumped its contents into one of the hogs’ feeding trough after stepping through the pen, ignoring the squealing and pushing of the beasts.
The boy wiped his forehead with the back of his muddy hand, squinting in the heat. His large blue eyes scanned the vast fields as he set his bucket down to the ground with a thump. A shadow appeared on the ground near the entrance of the shack—an older man, gripping a cane. He wore a ragged straw hat, and there were more wrinkles on his skin than I could really count. He scratched his beard, peering down at the field.
"Michel," he hoarsely yelled. "Quit standing around. You've done enough. Don't keep Martha waiting---she has supper ready. You better come before it gets cold."
The boy didn't even look in his direction. He kept his head low; a shadow was cast over his eyes.
"I know you hear me." The old man took a few steps forward, chewing on a piece of tobacco. "You’ve been out there since dawn. Come inside before the sun gets to ya. Sit and rest a spell, lest this heat kills us both.”
"I'll b-be….there s-soon." The words came out so quietly that I could barely make them out from Michel's mouth. "I-I will." He moved forward through the tangled wheat plants, gently pushing them aside. His bare feet left prints in the mud, leading the way up towards the mango tree. He cleared away the rotten fruit lying on the ground--took out a straw broom leaning against the tree trunk and began to sweep at the dead leaves, almost as part of a routine.
He had developed a bad stutter.
I watched as Michel slowly sat down in front of the grave once he cleaned the sacred space the best he could. He had some small dandelions gathered in his hand and placed them directly on top of the stack of colorful rocks that rested upon a neat pile. He wouldn't say a word. Just sat for hours and hours, a forlorn look in his blue eyes, until the old man had finally reached the edge of the field and convinced him to come inside. And every day, he would leave a different kind of flower on the grave.
My body somehow slipped through the wooden walls of the shack—its roof had begun to sag and fall apart with a few shingles missing. Gone was the junky, disarrayed state of the place I had seen, piled with books and furniture and all sort of items. Now it was nearly bare---cobwebs dangled from the corners, and dust rested on the cracked windowsill. It dawned to me that most of the items had likely been sold. A small busted kettle hung over a fireplace, where a cracked table sat in the middle of the one room home. Three small sleeping pallets with neatly folded blankets were placed opposite sides of the room. A mouse crept across the floor.
The boy rarely came into the shack, only for meals. He spent most nights outside, leaving his bed untouched. The sight of the structure alone seemed to unnerve him, and he listlessly became swallowed up into the fields from morning to sundown—-often awake before the old man was. He was a child who worked harder than most adults, and the sight deeply disturbed me. But a single evening did not pass by without him sitting in front of the grave, other nights had him silently staring at it with the sound of crickets whirring in the dark air.
Sometimes, the boy would carry a large bundle of sticks one of his frail shoulders to a crowded market—it looked like his frame could barely support them. I gazed at how strange the motor vehicles were on the lumpy dirt road and the multiple horses and carts that carried people, both Khonie and civilians, in this large, undeveloped city. Many days, he found himself unsuccessful in selling one, and people passing by, would jeer at his ragged clothes. A group of boys, who were much bigger and taller than him smashed each stick and gave him a hard thrashing, taking turns by swinging at him.
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By the end of the evening, Michel was sitting drenched head to toe in a shallow polluted river floating with garbage after a few spectators had thrown him in. Their roars of laughter echoed in the air as he slowly stood up, his hair covering his eyes and the foul smelling water dripping from his clothes. Another boy tossed a stick in the air, causing it to land with a splash on top of Michel’s reflection, before laughing and running to join his buddies, who disappeared down between the trees.
With a shaky hand, Michel reached out and picked up what was left of his merchandise. The only sound in the still air was his muddy bare feet sloshing against the water as he made his way towards the trash covered shoreline, where flies and mosquitos buzzed in the air.
It was sunrise when the boy arrived home with but a few broken sticks, soaking wet and shivering. I couldn’t hear the old man’s voice, but I saw his disgruntled shadow pointing at him, wagging his finger back in forth in the air, as if in the midst of the lecture. In the heat of the moment, he swiftly knocked the sticks out of the boy’s hand. They rolled onto the ground as the old man’s shadow retreated back to the hut, leaving him behind in the shadows.
And that night, they went to bed early, because there was no supper. Except for the boy. He stayed outside and sat in the middle of the dying, shriveling field.
The woman sliced knobby vegetables that the birds and worms had missed--cutting off the spots of gray and green mold that had grown on them--before dumping them into a pot of boiling water. She ground the wheat into flour, her wrinkled hands covered in it, before mixing it with water in creating a gray, slimy dough. The thin loaves she gave to both the old man and the boy. But the boy never ate them—he broke off pieces to feed the ducks at the algae covered lake where he gathered more sticks. He remained quietly crouched on the dirt, holding out a palm towards them full of the crumbs so that they might come out and eat out of his hand.
Michel and the old man loaded wheat bales up onto a cart with a small donkey hitched in front of it. I saw them on the road. The boy remained silent throughout this exchange, gently stroking the animal’s ears with his hands as it began to munch on what little grass remained on the dry earth.
"I saved up a few rupees," the old man mentioned as they sat around the table one warm afternoon, quietly sipping on watery gruel. " 'Bout time you got enrolled, and Martha thinks so as well." With his wrinkled hands, he placed a few small coins on the surface of the table. "This should last for the spring semester. Use this to buy whatever books them teachers want you get. Don't burden yourself. I can figure out how to pay for next year.”
Michel fiddled with the spoon in his hand.
I sat down on a stool in the corner.
The old man dipped his bread into the gruel and chewed noisily, glancing at the boy.
Martha smiled and folded her arms. "Ain't that wonderful, honey? In a few months, you'll be reading better than all of us. And writing and knowing your numbers. I hear they paying educated folk real good up in the city. You’ll meet all sorts of people your own age. This is a wonderful, wonderful opportunity.”
"Make that a couple of weeks," the old man chuckled. “You’ll be able to read the newspaper to me soon.”
"But...won't you need my help in the fields?" Michel asked. He was pleading now."It’s….as hard as is for t-t-he both of you. Y-you need that to buy more crops." Gently, he slid the money back towards the old man. "I can’t take this from you. I can get a job. L-let me h-help you. I…can do better.”
"You ain't cut out for the farm life, boy," the old man said. His smile faded, his tone became more serious. "I don’t want to subject you to a life of back breaking work for only a few rupees a day. I want something better for you than what I’ve got. And you too young and scrawny for a job—ain't nobody going to hire you. You go on to school in the mornings and the daytime. Then you come and help me if I need it.”
“I can try to look f-for a…” the boy struggled to get the words out. “A job.”
Martha gasped. “Oh, darling.”
“P-people don’t like me very much,” he whispered, looking away. “T-they think I’m s-strange.”
“Now, now, there’s nothing to worry about,” Martha interjected. “People are strange themselves. You just have to get out a little more.” She sighed. “Besides, it’s not best for you to be cooped up here with two withered crones like ourselves. You can’t stay here forever, and you know that. You are young. Live a little. Interact with others and get to know them.”
Michel quickly looked up—although distress and deep desperation was apparent in his eyes. “No…no…” Suddenly, he went from his chair and placed his dirty hands onto the surprised woman’s shoulders. He bumped against the table, causing a spoon to rattle against the surface. “No…”
”What has gotten into you?” the old man demanded. “Let go of her.”
“I can work h-harder….I can. P-please…d-don’t s-send me…away. D-don’t.”
The old man’s face grew pale.
“I…” Michel timidly said. “I think—”
The old man crumpled his napkin and threw it across the table. “I think you can find a better way to show your appreciation. I had hoped you would show a little more enthusiasm. The tuition alone cost me an arm and a leg, and this is how you express your thanks?” He released a low whistle. “I swear, this new generation is becoming more selfish, more entitled. So you think you’re grown? You’re a man now.”
“No, no, no—I….I really am grate—“
”You ain’t contributing a thing around here. You can’t even sell firewood. Can’t trust you with one of my prized hogs; you’d let someone steal it too.”
Michel’s face became pale—his breaths were heavy. “I…”
”How can I afford to feed someone who wants to do nothin’ all day?” As he shouted, spittle flew from his mouth. “You lazy, good for nothing, weak, stupid—“
The boy shrank from each word.
”Robert, please,” Martha hissed. “Enough.”
The old man pointed a knobby finger at Michel. “You are going to that school. I’ve saved for over a year to even get you enrolled. I don’t want to hear any more excuses. Dammit, boy, I raise you up, and you decide you want to make the rules? You don’t ever get to tell me what you’re going to do. Disrespect me like that again, and I’ll knock your teeth straight out your mouth.”
“I…I…just…w-would like to work,” Michel weakly said, shaken by his tone. “T-to h-help you—“
”No,” the old man yelled, banging his fist against the table, causing some gruel to spill on the surface. “This place offers a free lunch there every day. That’s one less meal you have to work for. You’ll get two in a day—something hot and good to fill up your stomach. I’ve already spoken with the dean. You’re going. And you will do what I say. Is that clear?”
Michel slowly lowered his arms.
“I asked you a question,” the old man’s voice thundered across the room. “Is that clear?”
”Yes, sir,” the boy whispered, holding his head low. “I’m sorry, sir.”
He swore under his breath. “I have never heard such foolishness in my life.”
Martha stirred her spoon into the gruel and coughed.
When the old man stood up, his chair made a squeaking noise against the ground. He loudly slurped what remained from his bowl, put his hat on his head, and walked off into the fields. Martha finished her meal and gave the boy a long look, before rising and heading to the pig pen.
Michel remained at the table for a long time after they both were gone, his bowl full of gruel. His eyes focused on the coins that glittered like stones on the surface. That night, he did not sleep in his bed, but laid on his side directly next to the grave under the mango tree, amongst the rotting fruit and plants.
The schoolhouse appeared in front of me in a run down part of a graffitied city under a weeping sky and puddles of mud in the ground. It was raining, and the buildings appeared to be collapsed and in a similar shape and dwelling.
As the boy stood in front of the steps, shivering, I saw that he was drenched in blue overalls covered in patches and a dirty buttoned down shirt, one of the few articles of clothing he owned and that had been carefully stitched and pressed by Martha, which were now soaked. Once he finally made his way up towards the door, he hesitated for a moment, before opening it and stepping his way in.
I followed behind him, taking in my surroundings. The hallway floor seemed to be made out of linoleum, and, after encountering a faculty member in a stuffy office that was stacked to the brim with papers, she frowned, reprimanded him for being over an hour late, read out his first and last name on a piece of paper, and told him to go to a room number. The look of confusion on Michel's face seemed to only agitate her further, so they brought him to another room. Asked him more questions that he seemed unable to answer.
Finally, one of the faculty members, perhaps the principal of the school, made him sit down and gave him a series of tests based on different grade levels, asking him to fill out anything he knew. They handed him a pencil and watched him helplessly stare at each piece of paper as if it were a foreign language to him, leaving each space empty. And the moment they gave him a small whiteboard and asked him to write his name on it, Michel’s hand shook around the black marker. He made a couple of crooked lines on its surface before slowly putting it down.
At last, the principal led the bewildered boy down to a small, colorful classroom full of much younger children; mostly six and seven year olds. With a heavy sigh, the man rapped on the wooden door and pushed it open, beckoning the boy to follow him. He hung back in the shadows for a while, but when the principal impatiently cleared his throat, he began to move forward.
Conversation and laughter ceased. All eyes fell on Michel as he quietly stepped inside the room, his muddy bare feet leaving prints on the wooden floor. Several classmates wrinkled their noses at him, others whispered and pointed, but I noticed he didn't even look at anyone in the eye. Just held his head low—his dirty hands were shaking as he shoved them into his pockets. The principal gently pulled the surprised teacher aside by her sleeve, who had been writing on the chalkboard, quickly hissed some things in her ear, before escaping through the door and loudly shutting it.
The woman gave a warm smile. She wore a polka dot dress and had bright red lipstick on, and her short brown curls were carefully pulled back. "Michel, yes?"
He shyly looked up, then gave a slight nod.
"Welcome to our class. My name is Ms. Carter. Why don't you have a seat over there? We were right in the middle of our reading lesson." There was a rise of laughter in the room, in which she loudly clapped her hands. "Settle down, please." With her left arm, she motioned at him. "Go ahead.”
As Michel slumped into an empty chair and rested his arms on the desk, he tried to make sense of the words scrawled on the board. Soon, most students began passing around a worn book to each other, taking turns reading each sentence. The little girl who handed it to him pinched her nose with two fingers and rushed back to her desk, causing others to start snickering. I could see the panic building up in his eyes--- with everyone looking at him in the room, heads turned in his direction.
My gaze fell on the illustrated page he was staring at, next to a colorful image of a bright red fox leaping over a grassy field. The corners were yellowed with age and curled up over each other. Michel slowly placed his dirty index finger under the first printed word, his mouth open, almost like he was trying to sound it out. Ms. Carter gave him an encouraging smile, nodding her head with so much enthusiasm I was surprised it didn't fly off her shoulders.
"T...t..." It came out as a hoarse whisper.
As the whole class erupted in laughter, the teacher rapidly knocked her ruler against her desk, yelling to quiet everyone down. A dark shade of red fell upon Michel's face, and he immediately got up and rushed down the hallway, pushing past a few startled students, out through the front door until there was fresh air and rain that matched with the water already forming in his eyes. He kept running in the pouring rain until he entered the wooded area across an overgrown field filled with weeds. Breathing heavily, he sat down behind a cluster of bushes and hid as the first bell rang, hugging his knees and burying his face in his lap.
* * * * * *
Evander’s soft cries made me sit up.
He was not hungry—and a smell rose from his very damp bottom. It didn't take me long to figure out the reason, and, after wandering outside for a moment, I found a small stream and carefully removed the swaddling cloth from his tiny body. After testing the temperature of the water with my hand, gently, I gently began to scrub him down thoroughly and quickly, not wanting to keep out in the exposed air for too long.
To my surprise, the water immediately calmed him down. I gently smiled at his astonished expression, his large eyes searching my face. He freely kicked his little arms and legs, creating faint splashes, and, being as careful as I could, I gave him his first bath due to being limited with only one arm, making sure to clean up all of the crust and residue on his skin. He seemed delighted by the bubbles that splashed on the surface.
Once he was fresh and clean, I dried him off good and swaddled him again in a fresh swaddling cloth, until he was warm. He looked up at me and lazily yawned, causing another smile from on my face. I kissed his forehead. His hand grabbed onto my pinky. For only being a day old, not even forty eight hours yet, he was such a well behaved child—an easy baby to be around. He had his father's patience---and the thought made my throat lumpy.
I blindly groped around in the dark, fighting a deep, wrenching cough settling in my chest. It was a nasty one, and took over my lungs until I found that the woman pounding my back amongst my muffled gasps. I didn’t even hear her come over. A look of relief fell on her face once she saw me.
"Goodness,” she exclaimed. "Don’t go out here alone at night. Now. Sit, sit. I made you some tea."
I wiped my mouth with my sleeve, wincing at the burning sensation in my throat.
”How do you feel? I can hold him for a while if you’d like.”
“Oh no, I’m alright,” I lied. The last thing I needed was to worry her further. “Just a little cold. You’ve done plenty for me.” I tried to smile, but began to cough again.
She was kneeling by the bed and placed a candle on the ground, before pressing a cracked turtle shell full of warm broth into my hands. The light illuminated her pale face. Her eyes were puffy, and she spoke in a low, quiet voice as if not to wake my son, who was already caught in deep sleep. Gently, she picked him up and rocked him in her arms, before suddenly handing him back to me. The dogs were outside, sniffing the ground.
"Someone’s here,” the woman whispered, reaching for her gun. She suddenly stood up. "I know someone's here."
"What do you mean?" I tried to spell in her hand, but she reloaded a magazine in her rifle, her fingers shaking as she pushed it in with a click.
"I saw footprints in the ground that didn't belong to ours," she continued. "I swear someone's out there.”
Her anxiety bewildered me. I cursed these strange dreams I kept having--they were weakening my joints and slowing down my mind. They were making me stupid. And although my body was begging me to lay down for a moment, I knew I owed this woman nothing but my life. I could not bear to see the terror in her eyes anymore. Beads of sweat poured down my forehead----but I reached for her shaky hand and spelled out,
"Let me help you."
She stared at me as if I had gone mad.
"I want to make sure you get home," I signed, before turning my head away to cough. "Maybe you can come with me to Selva. My husband is there. He knows what to do---he can help you."
"My home is up north," the woman said. "And that is no place for a Khonie. With all these water resources being taken up, that is where I must be." Her eyes widened. “I'll help you and your child find a safe place.” Suddenly she reached out towards me. "I....I cannot have you remain with me. I saw someone....you must hide."
"Who?" I asked. "Tell me."
Her face grew so pale it concerned me.
"You must hide,” she hissed. “Now."
But I couldn’t. I couldn’t even stand. I was suddenly falling, falling, falling down to the ground, and when the world became black I only saw her round face.
And then, there was nothing.