Those were the good memories but good memories are easy to forget. It is the dark memories that scar our hearts forever that stop us from falling asleep at night. Almost everyone was wiped out and we lost everything. Me? Well I am an orphan that says it all and even when I wake up in the morning and smell the fresh dew in the forest I think of that day, the forest was burning. You could hear squirrels, baby birds and every creature in the forest screaming for mercy. For safety. For it to stop. The cute little houses that we lived in were broken like they had been made of china and the dense, hot smoke filled the air burning your lungs leaving you unable to speak, unable to cry for help, it caused you to suffer a horribly and painstakingly long death, just like how my family and others endured. I still have a scar on my leg from that day, it serves as a reminder to the pain that I and others suffered and how I was lucky to be alive sitting on the rocky cliff watching the world go by. That scar came on the darkest day in the history of Shizuka.
But what cold hearted, lifeless monster could commit such a crime? I have been scarred for life because of it not just physically but mentally, even at night I hear them screaming, begging to cling onto their life and who did it? The U.S. army came. The Americans had come upon our land, not as guests or peacemakers but as invaders. They swept across our island leaving a blaze of destruction in their wake and there was nothing I could do but just stand as watch as everyone and everything I had ever loved was destroyed right in front of my eyes. Words cannot describe how I felt, the pain I endured and the salty, sour tear drops falling down my cheeks and onto my tongue mean nothing, they mean nothing to the animals- only oil does. Yes that’s why they came; oil was what they wanted and according to their technological slaves we were living right on top of it. Black gold they call it, it’s a liquid but can’t be drunk, it tastes disgusting like dirt in your mouth. If not for consumption of the body then what for? Well where they come from they need it to power and fuel their high tech life, the screens that move like paintings and pictures come to life, something they said that we would never understand. And I didn’t. I didn’t understand how it could be worth hundreds of innocent lives and what we had done to deserve this. That is why whenever I see a plane or a fancy ship I pray. I pray that it turns around and doesn’t come to the island of shizuka. Because I know what they are capable of. We all do.
But I bet you’re wondering after all this destruction and chaos what made them leave? They never took or even touched their black gold. So as I stare into the beautiful night sky now, with fireflies hovering above me lighting up the dark sky I give my thanks to my friend who saved the village of Shizuka. Some call him God and others Allah. I just call him my friend from above.
