Still in Shock

We heard the sound of the Kfir planes coming but not the sound of the bombs dropping. Because we were listening to the radio that morning. After the first bomb dropped, I couldn't see anything. My mouth was full of dirt. When the second bomb dropped I was behind some drawers and told two other girls to come and stay with me. They said they would stay where they were. I was wounded in my arm and it was burning, but I didn't realize it then. In the second bombing the other two girls were killed. After that I don't know what happened.

Then I remember running outside, and I saw a wounded girl. I started to carry her further away to the trees. Then she took a deep breath and died. I don't even know who she was. It was fully dark then. My mouth felt very bitter. I ran to the trees and hid inside a tree trunk. I saw the uncle who comes and cooks for us, wearing a white shirt that had turned red from the blood of his head wound. He strapped his bag onto a tree and then fell over and died. All my eyes could see were people dying everywhere.

Now if I'm alone I get bad headaches. And like a movie inside my head, I can see what happened in the bombing. I see the roofs falling down again….In the nights I can't sleep. I don't sleep alone because I'm afraid. I can't forget the example of carrying that girl and then her dying in my arms. Even now I'm afraid this will happen again. I imagine how I would run and escape if this happened again. But I think this experience will just keep happening to the Tamil people.

-Kavitha Pareshwaran