Fragments of me

A fragment is something. Separated. Incomplete and disjointed, so that on its. Own. Its isolated and senseless. A piece: broken from the whole. I suppose that’s the way I would describe myself. 

Strangled. Night wrapped day up in its funeral shroud strangling the last remnants of light; silencing and stilling all that moved. That’s how it started. When we left there was barely moonlight to guide us. The streets had been cratered and lacquered by the bombs, that fell silently but screamed on impact. From the scars left I observed plants and greenery had begun to sprout; however, it was only a cruel reminder that they would soon be scorched again. Life wasn’t allowed here anymore. Only death with his scythe. 

Most of the buildings we passed had collapsed to rubble, piles of masonry and twisted metal supports that pointed upwards like the hands of buried people reaching for help. The few that still stood were empty shells, now serving as monolithic gravestones. I knew the patrols would be out, and the checkpoints manned, as they were every night, but it was impossible to judge their location, so they existed as potential spectres around every corner. Waiting. The silence that pervaded the city felt physical as we waded through it, its oppressive weight hung off us like chains, slowing our every movement. Each step. Careful. Not to break it. 

I travelled with just a widow and her child. We all carried little in the way of possessions, although a necessity it was also a reality- very few of us had anything left. 

It took us a long time to leave the city that night, avoiding the soldiers, sticking to the gloom at the edge of the streets, using alleys and empty buildings to find temporary refuge. 

We came close to being seen, more than once, and sometimes as the torch lights swept over us it was almost a relief, that the fear that coiled around my lungs would finally be lifted. But they always moved on. Often, they were smoking, so we would watch the lit tip like a firefly dance away into the night. Flickering. Until we moved again. 

When we eventually crossed the border, nothing changed, because we didn’t have any way to know. We just kept heading away, wondering how far we would have to walk, to crawl, to drag ourselves to be beyond the ruins of home. Inch by inch. 

I can remember nothing more until I arrived at the camp, and, in many ways, I think that may have been a blessing. Everyone was processed in the main tent, a long white structure that glowed in the sun, like some strange mirage among the dirty tents and crowds of people that sprawled from it. The artificial lighting inside washed the colour out of everything, leaving people looking pale, with dark shadows carving up their faces. Aid workers moved up the lines, the sliver of sympathy I caught in their eyes was veneered by weariness, a weariness of processing human suffering day in day out. Endlessly. When I got to the front of the queue, I asked the lady “what will happen to me”, but she just returned a blank stare and shook her head. She didn’t understand me. She gave me some food and she gave me some medicine, but a voice. A voice she could not give me. 

It was a strange no-man land, the camp, a temporary city of tents and tarpaulins, a melting pot of ethnicity and individuals, that was the impression I got as I wandered, slightly dazed through it. Many eyes would follow me, eyes that spoke of greater despair then mouths could ever articulate. Perhaps they were wondering what had brought me to this place. 

Smells of unwashed bodies, of boiling food and damp intermingled to form an oppressive cloud that dragged through my hair and clothes marking me with the scent. Watching the inhabitants, like broken pieces discarded in a scrapyard. Hoarding their little piles of possessions like magpies. Speaking with voices that the guards and the medics and aid workers heard as meaningless sounds. At that point, I think, I felt less than human. 

I was, after some time, moved to a hostel, in London. A place that I had only ever heard in passing. The hostel was small, crammed. I was given one room. I didn’t have anything with me at that point so I couldn’t even fill the meagre space I had. There wasn’t much for me to do, I just waited. For what I couldn’t say but stranded in that behemoth of a city whose workings and language I was a stranger to meant I didn’t really have a choice. I often went and sat in the doorway or on my window ledge: watching. The people weave past my door, the shops open, the cars shunt forward in slow lines. Watching. At some point- while I was on the doorstep- a fallen newspaper opened its sheets like a butterfly’s wings on the pavement before being trampled by the black shoes that pounded London’s pavements. The pages were in pieces, torn strips scrawled with printed words like tattoos on pale skin. They littered the floor. Some were trodden on. Others wet. Becoming less and less legible as the words lost their meaning and became abstract lines. Interesting isn’t it, what words become without meaning. Nothing. 

I didn’t recognise the words, not even the symbols. I wondered if I ever would.

Think. I didn’t have much else to do during those days. I would think back to my childhood, and as we lived so close to the sea, how my parents would take us to the beach at every opportunity. I remember combing the sand for bits of shell, glass, and shards of pottery with edges worn smooth by the ocean’s possession. I would lie out these pieces in glistening mosaics cemented in the sand, fitting all of them into a design they were never intended for. When I looked out at London’s crowds it reminded me of the sea’s swell, rush hour like the movement of a tide. Even as a child, with those scraps from the sea, I understood fragments could be crafted into new creations. Put together. Wherever they washed up. Piece by. Piece.

You can listen to a recording of this story at: Purple Radio Spotify

Illustrated by Amy Nugent