Personal Essay

The blazing ball of fire stared dominatingly and relentlessly down at me, perhaps attempting to end my life, perhaps trying to extinguish my fading flame for survival. Even the vast earth which surrounded me bowed down to the power and intensity of the sun. The very earth was scorched by the radiating heat into a living hell; the land was parched, desiccated and barren. Patterned like lines of dried turtle shells where cracks and splits tore through the earth which depths lead to an unknown realm, probably peepholes into malicious hell. Any living organism ceased to thrive on this damaged land, only skeletons of the lucky managed to remain as mementos on this sacrificial region where they are slowly weathered by the sandstorms into nothing but sand. How cruel and heartless was the sun to exterminate all sources of life yet only sparing me and my family to experience a slow yet gruelling episode to death. Every day of my life felt like the last chapter of my book, where my death would be inevitable.

My lips were similar to the very earth which my knees were pressed on, parched and split exposing layers of rotten flesh on my disfigured lips. My teeth hung from my gum sockets precariously as my dried tongue scavenged around for nothingness. Somehow my salivary glands were not functioning, or maybe saliva evaporated at the instant it was secreted. My throat burned like a bodily inferno every time I tried to swallow, melting me from the inside. The pain was excruciating. I could not suppress this senseless torture anymore.

I knelt pleadingly on the ground looking righteously at the metallic feature right above my head with eyes of anticipation, faith and survival. I looked at it as though that thing was god. It could grant me survival, exemption from my agony and life for my family, so why not, that was god's job. I stared for an eternity at this majestic however rusted metallic feature which at this instant failed to promise me even a tinge of hope. The plastic handle was turned to its maximum however nothing not even trickles seem to emerge from this rusted minute structure. My flame for survival more or less was already cruelly extinguished at this moment. I looked up, fixed my gaze into the exit of the water tap. It was dark, ominous and foreboding threatening to devour my will and strength. All hope seemed lost.

"Water, please I beg you, please come out, even a drip would be fine" I pleaded in tearless sorrow.

Vultures soared through the sky, messengers from hell, and scavengers of the desert waiting for their long-awaited and scarce treat of human flesh. Diabolical screeches telling me to surrender to the clutches of death reverberated through the arid scene, at times I wish I could just die, but it was difficult with my family whose lives back at home depended solely on me. A new sound added to the cacophony of the vulture cries, this times it was not screeches anymore