Wall Street Jim walked all night. He got to the outskirts of the city, having hot and cold sweats and found a grove of trees beside the interstate that didn’t seem to have anyone around so he sat down and leaned up against a tree. “Maybe safe here?” he thought. All of a sudden he had to throw up. He felt a little bit better after vomiting until needing to do it again after a few minutes. This went on over and over for the next few hours until he was so exhausted from lack of sleep and withdrawals that he fell asleep.
Jim lay there with a pine needle hanging out of his mouth, freezing and then sweating, He was unconscious, having crazy dreams. He dreamed about June, who had told him about things coming in the future. He saw visions of these horrible things and woke himself up screaming at one point, but was mercifully able to go back to sleep because of his exhausted state. Every time he woke up he hurt so badly that he almost wanted to die to get away from the pain. But there was still the will to live. The hallucinations went on and on and on. Jim was hungry and thirsty and was still having hallucinations the following day. He lost track of time, because he hurt so badly, time didn’t have any meaning. He tried to think about Tim and Harold, but the pain and the gnawing in his stomach jealously guarded his attention, preventing him from thinking about anything else. After a few days, the hallucinations mostly stopped and he was no longer vomiting. He thought, “I am so thirsty, but I am too weak to walk. Did I do the wrong thing taking off? No, June could have told anyone what was going on, but she told me. There is a certain responsibility one has when they are trusted with such information. I have to be true to that knowledge. I didn’t want to believe her, but it is happening now. The elite are getting rid of most of the non-elite. Now that my mind is clear, I need to tell Tim and Harold. I don’t know if they will listen.”
Gloria had been given three helpers and could feel the tangible relief when they showed up and started helping her. After giving them their assignments and watching to make sure they did it right, Gloria got back to teaching math. Her part of the school, the elementary students, comprised 147 students. After completing their math problems, the children exchanged papers and graded them. Tina raised her hand and said, when called on, “Teacher, I finished; can I please read my book now?”
Tina had a hard time putting her book away long enough to walk back to her cabin after school let out. Her mom was tidying up, just having come back from work. Her job on the cruise ship was to serve food at breakfast and lunch and to help with busing the dishes back to the kitchen afterwards. She was weary every day at the end of her shift, but so happy to have a place to live and a way to care for her little daughter that it gave a boost to her step. Today she was folding and putting away hers and Tina’s laundry when Tina got back from school.
Unauthorized content usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report the violation.
Tina got out her book and continued reading. The history essay was not due till the end of the next week, but she was enjoying the book so much that she spent most spare minutes reading it. She had been thinking a lot about the history she was reading and had questions for her mom. After they went downstairs for supper, Tina and her mom decided to go for a swim to cool off and have fun together. While they walked downstairs, Tina asked her mom, “Mom, why do some people think it is ok to make slaves out of other people?”
Her mom was taken aback and asked, “Tina, what do you know about slavery and how did you get your information?”
Tina responded, “My book I am reading for history said white people shipped black people over here from Africa and treated them like animals. They had to do whatever the white people said and they lived in houses that were not as good as the white people and had dirt floors. But that is not the worst, mom! The white people sold them like they were just boxes of cereal or a car or something. They even took their children away from them and sold them. They didn’t care if two people were married; they took them apart and didn’t let them be together any more! And some white people were enslaved too. The Irish were treated really bad, too! Some of them were kept in cages too small for them to move around in and starved. And that’s not all, Jewish people were enslaved way, way back in history. And less than 100 years ago, a really bad man named Hitler decided to kill all of the Jewish people. He had them kept in bad camps, where they didn’t get much to eat, had to work hard, and they had lice, and then he was having them burned and shot. Why are some people so mean to others, mom?”
Tina’s mom was not prepared for these questions. She hadn’t realized Tina had been exposed to these cruelties. She was so young and had gone through so much in her young life, homelessness, hunger, losing her dad, seeing acts of violence on the streets and watching people hurt themselves and others with drug use. Tina’s mom couldn’t help Tina unsee these things or unread the things she had learned about slavery and cruelty. She thought, “I will just have to pray that she comes out stronger for the things she has gone through.” She answered, “Tina, I don’t know, I guess it comes from greed, wanting more than you need. There are also people who want to control others. What do you think?”
Tina said, “I think you are right, Mom. I just wish I could go back in history and help those people!” Satisfied with her mom’s answers, Tina jumped into the water and splashed her mom, starting a fun playtime.