CANDLELIT CHRONICLES: HISTORIC HAUNTS

June 21_ and Free Read 1072 wc

         These entries will be primarily free reading for the next few days or however long it takes for me to battle out this jaw-gum infection {which began on June 4); last evening and this morning have been much the worse, and I've resorted to a homemade ice pack. I have a rear molar loosening at the roots and the infection, which also seems to be an ear-sinus type, is centering there; the jaw is swollen and my throat, jaw, gum, mouth, and ear hurts. My head aches. I can't think clearly. Reading and viewing a screen are uncomfortable.


         Before you ask, why don't I take steps to solve it: I have not taken any kind of internal medication since the first week of January 2007, due to a severe allergic reaction to an oral generic cold liquid which confined me to bed for 5 nights and 4 days, and fogged my thought processes for a week following that. Since I have not even consumed a single Tylenol. I use muscle rub, Vicks, Orajel, which are topical treatments. I won't take pills or liquids. Additionally, without health insurance, funds, or transportation I couldn't see a physician or a dentist if I desired to do so; I live with my health issues while many who make a career of visiting doctors and rave about their medications claim to suffer so much. Not saying they don't have pain; only saying there are degrees. I know of one individual in this category who states: “I could not live without my pain medication.” Oddly enough, I do live-without.





{i}Finding The Abandoned Child{/i}:











Chapter Five





epigram:


“All the rivers flow into the sea,


Yet the sea is not full.


To the place where the rivers flow,


There they flow again.”


Ecclesiastes 1:7








         The night our little portion of the world changed, Mamma, Pastor Janns, Natay-lee, Jahro, and I scurried West along quiet streets and through alleys, heads down and paying little attention to our surroundings. The fitful light of the moon shining between taller buildings kept us concentrating on our footing. But when we eventually reached the diagonally crossing Swan Street, though, we were amidst buildings of only two and rarely three stories, and because Swan was diagonal and slanted downhill toward the Harbor, we were at last able to see the water, and soon we identified the source of the roar. We crossed narrow square lawn in front of a two-story apartment building, beside the alley we had just walked up, and suddenly the roar was unmistakable. We stopped for a moment, set down our packages to rest, and gazed downhill in astonishment and shock. The only sound other than the roar of the tidal waves encompassing the city's small Harbour was the voice of Pastor Janns, quoting from one of his interminable religious scriptures.





epigram:


“All the rivers flow into the sea,


Yet the sea is not full.


To the place where the rivers flow,


There they flow again.”





         Not quite sure how that was applicable, I continued to stare at the sea, washing over the Harbour and the fishing sheds on the wharf, or where the wharf should be. Fishing boats and small craft dotted the high waves, bobbing as if nodding to us.





         Of the fishing sheds on the wharf, and of the homes and huts of the fisherfolk, we could see nothing. We could only hope they had been given some kind of warning, by the noise, as had Pastor Janns, who, awake, had recognized the sound of danger and had alerted Mamma, myself, and the cousins, so we could leave. So now we knew of danger, knew the identify of it, and had left our homes, but now where could we go. Although Pastor Janns had orchestrated the initial exit from our compound by alerting Mamma, now she seemed to take over orchestrating of it, leading the charge across to the West side of the city. We sped across Swan, sparing not one more glance toward the devastation of the Harbour, and raced along East-West streets and alleys till we reached the Gymnasium, a tall building with an arched ceiling and tin plating on its slightly domed roof.





         To my surprise, if not to Mamma's and Pastor Jann's, many of the city-dwellers, including what seemed to be all fo the fisher-folk (for which I found myself unaccountably grateful) milled about the corners of the Gymanasium, or stood along the back wall. Mamma sent Pastor Janns around to the front to see if the double doors were open, but he reported back that they were locked. One of the West Side residents had informed him that informed him that the Gymnasium's Manager, Loreeta Wills, who lived to the far North-East, just below the hills where cattle peacefully grazed, had been alerted and was now on her way here to open up the building for use as a shelter, till rebuilding could commence.





         When Madame Wills arrived, the Gymnasium was quickly opened and made ready for our use, all of the residents who had evacuated Center City and the South Side. A few had even come in from Swan Street, from North of Center City, which I found surprising. Most of these were families with young children-those who could not afford housing elsewhere. Although the disaster did not promise to reach as far as their homes, I guess they felt safer bringing their children to the Gymnasium for shelter, as the building sat securely on its own Knoll to the NorthWest of Mellaigch.





         Outside the Gymnasium we could all barely hear the roar of the tidal waves; inside once the doors were shut, we could not hear it at all. The thick stone walls of the building kept out all exterior sounds; in a way this was reassuring, yet it also was frightening. Anything could have been happening outside, and we inside would not have known. Because the double doors were of such a thickness of wellterr wood, and because the stone walls were twenty centimeters in thickness, a narrow rectangular window had been set into the door on the left, so that anyone inside could open it to see if someone waited at the door-quite likely, a knock might not be heard. Since the circumstances were rather dire, Madame Wills opened the slider covering this narrow window, so that someone at the door could be immediately seen and granted entrance.