Disaster Story and Writing Journal

Too Young to Die
By Ethan Jones

What does it mean to die?
The heart ceases to pump,
The mind ceases to think,
The soul separates from its mortal form.

Or rather, is death a state of being?
When all possessions are lost,
When truth can’t be distinguished from lies,
When liberty falters.

For when a boy becomes a man,
His family growing before him,
He must define truth and liberty,
And in doing so he defines not death,
But rather life.

Omar ran home from school to show his parents his grades. All of his friends said that he had the ‘Luck of the freshman’, but he assured himself that it wasn’t luck. Large pine trees lined his street, and their reflections could be seen in the various Mercedes and Lexus’ as he ran by. He grabbed the branch of one of the trees and used it to swing his body from the sidewalk into his driveway. He stumbled, but regained his balance and sprinted up the long driveway, bursting through the front door. “Mother! Mother!” he called. His Mom appeared from their living room and walked to the fireplace, wearing a long silk skirt with a baby blue wrap around her head. He gave her his report card, and her face immediately lost its sunken lines.
“This calls for some ice cream,” she exclaimed. She put on her shoes and pulled the baby blue silk across her face. They piled into the car and were about to leave when Omar’s father pulled into the driveway behind them. A large red maple leaf on a white and red flag was prominently displayed on the dashboard of his Mustang. Omar jumped out of the car and ran to show his Dad his grades, but he was stopped short by his glare. His father was pulling new tan suitcases from the trunk of his Mustang, and dark circles leaked from the bottom of his eyes.
“What’s wrong Dad?” Omar asked.
“He called today. It’s time.”
Omar helped his father with the suitcases, and in a few hours they had cleaned out their home. Omar had packed clothes and his Ipod, but nothing else. His father had only given him one suitcase, which meant he had to decide between bringing pants or his new laptop. Needless to say, his survival instincts got the better of him as he shoved his jeans into the suitcase. He walked through the colonnade to the driveway and dropped his suitcase amongst his younger brothers who had already situated themselves in the leather seats. They drove to the airport, checked their luggage and boarded the plane. The green forests and ice capped mountains that Omar fell asleep to became vast expanses of lifeless desert when he awoke.
Omar crouched behind a rusty oil barrel. His father was in the house, and he could see the barrel of his gun pointing out of their window. A loud speaker echoed throughout the compound in perfect English. “Give yourselves up and no one has to die today. We will use all necessary force Bin Laden.” Omar gave a quick translation to Akmed, who began to cry. Akmed couldn’t understand why they wanted his father so badly, and Omar tried to console him. He heard glass shattering, and the barrel of his fathers gun pointed into the air and then it was gone. Suddenly bullets began to ricochet off of his oil can. Something bit him in the leg, or at least that’s what it felt like. He tried to shake it off, but blood soaked his pants and shoes. He hear the crunch of footsteps coming closer, so he pulled the pin on his only grenade and threw it over the can. It exploded and men began to scream, but it pleased him. Allah would have no mercy on them, those Christians, those Americans. He let out a scream and jumped from his hiding place wielding an old pipe, but was knocked down in a hale of bullets.
Omar woke up on a shiny table that wreaked of disinfectant. His vision was blurry and he felt a large cotton pad over his left eye. His eyes scanned the room around him, which was composed of cinderblock, painted white, and a few other shiny trays. He tried to make noise, which came out as more of a moan, and a man in a white lab coat appeared from around the corner. He shined a bright light into his eyes, and everything went black. Omar called for his mother, his father. He pictured wrestling matches with his brothers on the trampoline in the backyard. He always won when it was one on one, but his brothers tended to gang up on him, considering he was the oldest. His mother always had fresh squeezed lemonade ready for them when they were done playing in the yard. Omar wondered what happened to Skip, their Afghan.
“Can you see me?” a voice asked.
“No,” Omar replied.
People began mumbling, and Omar felt something pinch his left arm. When he woke up again he wasn’t strapped to the table anymore. He found himself in a small cell, made of the same white cinderblocks. His jeans had been replaced by an orange jumpsuit, and his hand was emblazoned with a tattoo stating GTMO 766. He walked to the door of his cell, peering through the plastic and wire mesh. A guard stood down the hallway, wearing full camouflage with an M16 at his side. Unmistakably sewn on his shoulder was an American Flag. A phone rang, and the guard answered. Omar was dragged from his cell to another small room. His hands and feet were put into handcuffs, which were then connected to ‘I’ bolts in the floor. He couldn’t stand up, or stretch out. He was left on the floor, stuck in a fetal position for hours before he was taken back to his cell. There were no questions asked, just pain.
Days went by, and nothing changed. He would stretch in the morning after eating a plate of green gruel. Then the phone would ring, and he would be taken into the small room where he would be handcuffed to the floor. One day the yelling began. A soldier would come in and yell at him about Bin Laden, but he didn’t know anything. He was sure that he had been forced into hell. The lights would be turned off at night, and the next morning it would all begin again. The life that Omar once knew was now only a memory.
He couldn’t understand why they did this to him? He didn’t want to leave his home. He didn’t want to kill anyone, but when being shot at, what is there to do but shoot back. He was defending himself, his family, and his friends. He was defending everything that he calls home. What is home? Who was he in the grand scheme of things anyways? These thoughts rattled GTMO 766’s mind while he lay in that horrid position every day. He no longer understood his life. He had lost everything, and now he was losing himself.


Writing Journal

Joining the imaginary with the real is a very volatile means of writing. When the real history is not portrayed as it actually happened, many people can become deeply offended. I don’t remember the author, but there was a series of books written on a French Soldier named Sharpe. He fought all over the world in battles that actually occurred, although he was a fictional character himself. The author did a very good job of portraying history through his story though, and given the setting was 200 years ago… there aren’t many people who know the absolute truth about what happened. To make an autobiographical piece seem believable, I find that small details really help. When an author can tell the reader about the loose thread on the right arm of his coat, I tend to believe him. Why would anyone care about the small things besides the actual person writing the autobiography. The writings on the walls of the museum were very moving, but I felt that I wasn’t able to fully enjoy the museum because it was entirely in Italian. I would be very interested to see all of the exhibits and documents in English. I chose to write about a young kid that is being held in Guantanamo because I searched ‘disaster’ on Wikipedia and Guantanamo bay came up. Somewhere in the article it mentioned that there were three kids being held there under the age of eighteen, so I researched it and sure enough it was true. One of the kids, Omar Khadr, is a Canadian who comes from a rich background, but his father takes the entire family to Afghanistan. I felt it was the perfect example of the have/ have not story.