Heat licked our parched faces and coiled around our limbs like a great interminable serpent as mother continued to spat at us for stopping in between our chores. Our home lay lifeless - desolate and abandoned, like a merciless desert with not even a mouse to be heard scurrying in the kitchen. Entrapped in a continuous feeling of helplessness, the air within our home began to become thick and hazy, as though we were sinking in quicksand, each breath feeling like we were slowly drowning. As the day continued, the floorboards of our home smoldered and melted in the poisonous scented heat, sending a disorientating haze to the second floor. Baby Alana couldn’t help but painfully shriek on the hourly mark; and of course, me, being the oldest had to repeatedly rush upstairs to cradle her back to sleep. The only beauty about the hot days in Philadelphia were the cool nights to recover from the day-long heat stroke one had to endure.
However today, the heat felt especially intolerable as the smell of death and rotten bodies lingered in the air. Mama and Papa had been in talks about moving out of the city for a while now. Not only because of the heat, but also because we received news earlier this week that our dear neighbor caught that deadly yellow fever. With Baby Alana barely at the age of two, Mama was worried she’d be the first to catch it and kill us all. However, I never understood Mama’s logic as Baby Alana rarely ever leaves the confined walls of our home.
It was around 5pm and all I could think of was sleeping when Papa rushed through the door.
“My darlings” Papa repeated “my darling children, you three go upstairs, would you? Go pack your bags and take care of Alana. Let me talk to your mother.”
“But Papa you just got home” Sally stuttered “Wouldn’t you want anything to eat? I can make you some bread if you’d like.”
“Upstairs now” he responded hastily “Pack, we are leaving in an hour. We must get out of the city as fast as we can. We’re heading down your Uncle’s in Virginia, we’ll stay down there for a little. Now no more questions.”
What’s really interesting is the disconnect between how panicked the parents are and how detached the speaker seems to be, probably because the speaker believes death was present in the house long before yellow fever—the “home lay lifeless,” being inside felt like “slowly drowning,” and the whole thing starts with the image of a snake choking the inhabitants. The speaker and their parents are clearly on very different pages.
ReplyDeleteAnika- I was immediately drawn into your story with your analogy of the snake as a reference to the stifleing heat in eightenth Century Philadelphia. I think that in your story that you were able to capture the fear and urgency that people experienced during the Yellow Fever. I would love to see how you continue to develop your story. I would like to read more about the family and whether their daughter will recover from the Fever.
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