Raining Asbestos Sheets

“It's raining, yes, it's definitely raining, but it is anything but rain,” thought Ellie. Could rain make all that horrible noise? And yet, when the harmattan wind comes just before the rain, it makes frightful sounds.

“But no,” she repeated to herself, this could not possibly be rain.

The bath water was still warm, and Ellie was soaking in the tub, but she knew she had to get up quickly because she needed to find out what this noise was about.

It sounded as if the house was breaking.

“No,” she thought, “if something terrible were happening, someone, any of my sisters, mother, or father, would come to find me. I need to listen very well; is someone calling me?”

No, no one was calling her, and yet she could feel that there was chaos happening outside. Well, whatever was happening, she thought as she quickly dried and dressed; no one was calling or coming for her.

The sounds were increasing; something was being torn apart, and something was breaking, and Ellie's hands shook as she quickly put on a dress.

Opening the bathroom door, she froze.

The wind was tearing the house apart, and yes, it was breaking all over the place. She stood there crying for a few minutes, calling for anybody to come and get her.

“No one is coming,” she thought.

"How can I get out of this mess? The house is breaking all around me?"

"Mom," she called.

Her voice got lost, mingling with the sound of the breaking house and the howling of the harmattan, but one thing was sure: no one was in the house except her.

"But when I went to get my bath, they were all in the house, so where is everybody, and what is happening?"

She wanted to run, but she still stood frozen to the spot, unable to decide or even to think what she could do.

It was not the lack of brains, just the lack of years; Ellie was barely 11.

With leaden feet, she made her way across the living. The living was just pieces of wood flying around, broken glass, and sand from the harmattan winds flooded through the broken windowpanes. So, she made a detour to the house's back door, and on her way, looking out of the window, she could finally see what was happening.

Asbestos sheets were flying across the street to the other side.

Their house was coming apart in pieces and flying with the force of the wind, and there, at the other side of the street, under a thick tree, more than 100 meters away, her family stood huddled together: two sisters and a mother.

"Why didn't they take me with them?"

She shook with fear and tried to open the back door, but it wouldn't yield from the force of the wind.

"Aren't they going to come and get me?"

I'm alone in the breaking house, and they are outside.

I can't open the door; I'm trying to push it open, but it's not opening.

What am I supposed to do? The house is falling apart, and I'm inside.

I'm alone.

'Where is dad? I forgot he's in the hospital today; he has work.

The front door is breaking apart, made of glass, and I can't open the back door.

The windows are made of small panes that open upwards, so I can't get out of the window.

How do I get out and go to my family?

“Oh, Mama, I'm scared. And I'm alone; I will have to get myself out of this house.”

She finally started pulling her feet away from the window next to the door that wouldn't open, and she had it sideways to the small door that opened into the garage.

Somehow, the storm's force was causing the electricity to spark and catch fire, and she could see tongues of fire beginning here and there.

Unaware of what she was heading to, she opened the small door that led into the garage and was so thankful that she could open it.

Then she went into the garage and headed to the outer wooden door.

The main electricity box was in the garage, and she could see it was starting to catch fire. And on the other side of the garage were five gas cylinders that they used for cooking.

Gas was always scarce, her mother always explained, so she kept extra cylinders. Still, the girl who stood trying to open the garage door was unaware electricity that was exploding on one side could easily create bombs out of the five cylinders that were to her left hand.

She was fighting the force of the wind to push the door open. Several times, it slammed backward, closing on her fingers. Still, she kept fighting until she could push herself through the opening and go outside.

She ran as fast as her shaking feet could carry her to her family across the street; the asbestos was right beside her…

"Oh, it's so good you could get out."

"I was having a bath," she whispered as relief mingled with the hiccups and the sweat running down her face.

"So that's where you were."

"Mama, you didn't call me."

There was no reply, and the sight of the house and what was happening to it made the girl turn around to stare.

What had seemed like hours for her as she pulled herself out of the house may just have been 15 minutes or less, but it was a miracle that saved this little girl from exploding along with the house.

The asbestos that had flown spraying around like the spraying sprinkles of rain had also failed to snatch her head as she ran alongside them.

For days and weeks afterward, even after they moved to another house, she would wake up crying and shivering, remembering I was alone in the house that was breaking to pieces, and they were out there in safety.

During those same weeks, she heard family friends, her mother, sisters, and father talking about the miracle that the gas cylinders hadn't exploded.

"I was in that garage alone next to the cylinders."

And alone became a norm; alone during the nightmares that followed, alone when she she shook with fever as the malaria hit her brain.

"It's cerebral malaria," they explained to her, which is vastly different from the malaria fever that most people get. And when the fever reached, and her brain fought the disease, she reached out for anyone to hold her hand because, at those times, she lost her sight.

For a day or two, sometimes it reaches up to four days when the world is entirely black.

"Is that the blanket on the windows, or why is there no light?"

"You will be fine," they would say, and her father would sit next to her, and yet her brain would say he's not my father; he's my stepfather, and I need my mother.

"I am glad my dad is here."

Her mother got the food, which she couldn't even look at, but she never touched the girl or gave her a touch or hug.

The girl had to fight for her life alone.

Are these thoughts, memories, or excerpts from life – perhaps the imagination conjured them?

No, those are memories and excerpts from Ellie's life book; it was the skeleton she thought her life would always be made of.

It didn't matter what she went through, who was hurting her, or what was happening to her; Ellie was always alone.

And with the loss of her dad, for he was more than a father; he was her whole family.

Alone became a norm; when her brain froze with fear or her body shook with pain, she had to hold herself and comfort herself and fight to get back to life because, ohh, I have a family, that is quite a number, but for one reason or the other this one girl is not a person that they want in their lives.

It was a puzzle, and she couldn't understand why. And they always left her alone when she was in the deepest trouble.

The grown-up woman needed answers.

"Why am I always not part of your life?"

"I want to be part of your life; you're my sister."

Of course, you are part of my life, she would reply, but actions spoke louder than words until the day came when it was the norm that she didn't even know her sister's address.

As for the other sister, she made it clear louder than words that no, you're not welcome here, and then it was her mother's turn to follow in the steps of her two daughters.

"And why am I surprised?" Ellie asked herself, "Because, after all, when the house was exploding, the asbestos was chasing me, or the malaria was eating at my brain for days on end, I was alone. So why am I asking to be part of the circle that I had never been part of? And if they hadn't saved me then or tried to be there for me when I was still a little girl in my father's house, would I expect them to make me part of that circle now that I am a married woman? And when my husband beats me, do I expect them to come running just because I told them what happened."

'Well, Ellie, you shouldn't have told them because you should have learned your lesson that they aren't going to come."

And the day comes when that same husband tries to kill her, and not out of the blue because that wasn't the first time. She finally learned the lesson and did not bother telling her family that she had nearly been killed.

The signs of suffocation were there on her neck, on her arms, on her breasts, and her body, but still, she did not try telling anyone because Ellie, who had faced the asbestos alone, had to face everything in life alone.

Days and weeks and years, she had tried to ask herself why, and she had even gone overboard and thought maybe I was not their daughter, but then the mirror told her she was very much their daughter.

"Perhaps I'm hateful or did something to make them hate me."

Then comes the piece of paper, which turns into a notebook, and she starts putting down every interaction that she could remember through her childhood and, later, grown-up years, even after she got married.

"I am not without fault, but why…...?"

She looked at them objectively and couldn't find anything except Ellie the wallflower, Ellie who had been too quiet, and Ellie who had shouldered even her nightmares and traumas alone.

She could remember that girl who lay in that with a raging fever, knowing for and finally understanding that for three or four days, she would not have the use of her eyes. Still, no hand was there to guide her to the bathroom and bring her back.

"But I have two sisters and a mother, and someone should help me when I'm ill."

"You need to stop expecting something that you know very well you're not going to get, so grow up, Ellie," she shouted at herself.

It wasn't the first time she told herself those words, the second, the hundredths, or the two hundredths.

"Alone I am, and alone I have to finish my life."

Even after she escaped from her country so that her husband wouldn't kill her, she knew it would be futile to tell any of them.

She kept telling herself, "I didn't do anything wrong, so maybe they will support me."

And the following sentence was always the same. It was the same again this time, "You know they're not going to help you, and they're not even going to want to know anything about you because they haven't even asked about you for more than ten years, so grow up Ellie and don't ask or tell anyone anything. But I don't want to grow up any more than that. I am past my 50s, and I'm still searching for the love and arms of my family even though I know very well, and my brain knows it, that I'm not going to get it."

"Dear Ellie," she scolded herself, "you can rain tears or asbestos, and the result is the same."