The day Lucas and I died

I’m dead. Lucas Santos is dead. We died on November 5th, 2015. We were among the seventeen people who died in Brazil’s worst environmental disaster, the burst dam that released toxic mud and caused destruction throughout 500km of land and water.  

That day began like the past seven days had, with that sick, tight feeling in my stomach. Lucas felt the same. What was I going to do about Ana? I decided I was going to give her an ultimatum, so I got up from my bed, trying not to wake my brothers and headed for the small kitchen, in the small house I shared with my parents and four brothers. My das was already up. He is a fisherman, which meant he needed to be on the boat by dawn. 

“You’re up early” he said. 

“Couldn’t sleep”. 

“Something worrying you?”

“No.” No need to burden him with my problem, being the sole provider for a family of seven he had already too much on his mind and too many problems as it was. Specially considering I had decided to solve my problem that very same day. 

“Hope it is not my snoring that’s keeping you up, I realize it has gotten worse, your mother said so, I’ll do something about it, I promise.” He was always like that, apologetic. I always hated that, it made me feel guilty for hating the life we had.

“No dad, it’s nothing, I’m fine.” He planted a kiss on my forehead, grabbed his packed lunch my mom had cooked the previous night and was off to the docks.

 I caught a glimpse of the sky when he opened the door, it was still dark outside. So much sacrifice to make ends meet. My mom couldn’t work because she had to take care of us, but still she did whatever she could to help, our neighbors laundry, bread to sell on weekends in the farmer’s market…and still there was never enough money. Why have five children when you can barely feed one? 

And now Ana and her stubbornness, I was going to have to make her be reasonable. 

When she told me last week I reacted the worst way possible, that’s why she was being so difficult, I told her it was her fault, that she tricked me and that I wanted nothing to do with her anymore. But I knew it wasn’t so simple. The minute my parents found out they were going to make me own up to it. Lucas agreed with me. I decided my approach had to be different this time. I grabbed one of my mom’s bread she had already packed for the farmer’s market, took all my savings I had buried in a wooden box in our vegetable garden and headed for Ana’s. 

The bread was my attempt to please her, to apologize. The money, it just had to be enough. 

She was visibly still angry, but she let me in. I started just as I had planned, I apologized, I hugged her, we were almost the same again. Until I showed her the money and told her what it was for. She flipped. I tried to reason with her, told her that with the two of us being underage that it was going to burden our parents even more, I thought that might make her come around, but she had already made up her mind. “I’m going to keep it, I already told my parents and they support me in my decision”. I felt trapped. And desperate. 

When I left her house all I wanted to do was disappear, I felt my dreams slipping through my hands, how could I have been so stupid? So reckless? I was doomed to have the same life my parents had. The same sacrifices, the same worries, the same endless work to support a family I didn’t even want. All those years struggling to study and work at the same time, so that I could one day leave this town, now Ana was making me throw it all away. 

I was still caught up in my problems when I heard the first screams. There was a loud noise that I couldn't understand, almost like waves and the floor was shaking. Someone came running down the street screaming that the dam had burst. In minutes, sixty million cubic meters of iron ore waste and mud would engulf the whole town and take anyone and anything in it’s path with it. People started running, some went back to their houses to warn their loved ones. I thought of going back for Ana, but there wasn’t enough time, I just had to try and save myself. 

Hundreds of people were running and screaming on the streets, parents grabbing their children, trying to rush the elderly, we could already hear the ocean of mud arriving. And the smell. The smell reached us first. It was a strong and potent. I thought of my parents and brothers, there was no way I could make it home in time, all I could hope was that being close to the river they might make it. I remembered the mountains nearby and immediately started running towards it. “Look for the highest part you can find”, Lucas and I thought. 

We must have been running for about an hour when we reached the glade. I looked down to the city I so hated, and everything was covered in red mud. People lost everything that day, their loved ones, their houses, an entire river died. 

Lucas Santos died that day. I got everything back. Everything I had lost moments ago, I got it back. I thought about my parents and how much they would miss me, but I also realized they would have one less mouth to feed, it would help them, maybe they would even get a compensation from the company responsible for my death. 

I thought about Ana and the child. If she wanted that child so much, then she could have it. It wouldn’t have come to this if she wasn’t so stubborn. I was glad I didn’t give her the money, I would need it if I was going to start over. 

I took one last look at the mud-covered town, turned my back to it, never to return again.