A Strayed Journey of Amaya and Ran

The sound was like a knife through my body as the words left his mouth.

“Well, your mother is dead Amaya.” My father looked me in the face trying to find some sign of emotion on my face, but I just stared back at him blankly. “I am sorry.”

My mother had died when I was 8 years old and now I was 10 and my father was an alcoholic and I had a younger sister named Naomi who was 7 years old and she had lost her mind. She didn't talk to me or anyone else for that matter and she sat in a corner of our flat staring at the wall, rocking back and forth while making strange noises. It scared me that she might go crazy too, but I could not help it. Father told me that it was because she had been born with a mental condition that kept her from growing up properly, and it made me so angry because we did not have any money to buy medicine or doctors to help her with her condition.

Father said that he had gone to see my mother's family since she had passed away and they told him that they didn't want anything to do with us anymore because they blamed us for my mother's death; they thought that she died because of us. He said that he asked them if there wasn't anything they could do to help us, but they just looked at him with disgust on their faces as if I were some disease he would catch if he stayed too long in our flat. The only one who cared about us was Uncle Ran who used to live with us, but now he lived somewhere else. He used to take care of Naomi when we couldn't and he taught me how to read, but now he hardly ever came around anymore. The last time we saw him was when Naomi started acting strangely and he came by to help out, but then after a while he stopped coming over altogether. Life had become unbearable for all of us living in the same flat together, so father decided that we should move out and find another place where we could be alone without any noise or people bothering us. That's why we were now standing outside of this large park in the middle of London trying to decide which way we should go next before nightfall fell upon the city.

“We will have to spend the night here Amaya, so be sure to grab whatever you need from your bag so we can set up camp near those trees over there alright?” My father pointed toward a group of trees a short distance away from where we stood and I nodded back at him in reply hoping it would make him happy again like it usually does when I do what he says quickly enough.

I rummaged through my bag until I found my small doll that Uncle Ran had carved for me out of wood many years ago when I was still little enough to fit inside his pocket, and now its hard for me to hold it all by myself except for when I squeeze tightly between my thumb and pointer finger as if crushing something between them until it dies. Then I found my blanket which Uncle Ran must have given me sometime after my mother died because it is much softer than the things you can buy anywhere else, especially when you rub it against your cheek while wrapping yourself up in it close as can be so you can feel alive again even if its only for a few seconds before you fall into sleep.