21
I Remember
by Oskar Lavelle
I remember… the feeling of fear rattling around my body as my mother walked me to the platform. My mother and so many adults told me my journey to the countryside would be temporary until the city (my home) is safe again but for some reason I felt like it was a lie. As I approached the dull smoke filled platform I look back at my mother and I cried, screamed and begged her not to leave me like so many children around me but like every parent around me my mother smiles and turns her back on me and walks away with no emotion. I feel betrayed! My grief and I stumble on the train of screaming children trying to process the feeling of abandonment. At least I’m not the only one who feels sad. As time goes by the screaming and crying fades out into the daunting sound of silence. The only sound I can vividly hear is the heavy exhales from my supervisors as they chain-smoke their tobacco. I try and breathe in but it’s difficult to because of the endless smoke from the exhausted engines, the heavy smokers and the smell of unclean children around me. A few hours pass and I’ve calmed down a lot more – well I can breathe. I can barely look out the window as it’s covered in thick, gritty soot. What I can manage to see out of the window is beautiful – endless fields and flat green land with barely any man made buildings just nature in its natural state. I’ve never left London as I have never needed to. It’s pretty scary seeing strange animals, like cows- I have only ever eaten them and not seen them. Their faces look like bicycle seats and their skin has black and white patches just like the zebras we have learned about in class but I thought these animals only existed in tropical climates – not a few hours down the train track. It is mid-day when we make it to our temporary homes. I step of the rust tin can that they call a train and breathe in the fresh air of the countryside. For a split second, I felt like a bird set free. It was exciting and pleasant to breathe in air that doesn’t smell like a rotting goat. The air in the countryside was pure and unpolluted. I smelled the freshly mowed grass and then I suddenly heard the scream from an old crow “line up kids, you know what to do”. We were put in a perfect line of formation as the mean looking families swarmed in. Then the families started picking which families they would take in. I’m really worried. What if it’s a horrible family that takes me in? I feel like a sheep that knows it’s going to be slaughtered. The sophisticated well-dressed children are taken in first by the posh family. As the children fade out of the line so does the upper class families, I’m forced to acknowledge that my battered shoes and worn out clothes would not get me a spot with a decent family.
