• I opened my eyes and the sun blinded me for a single instant... the heat roasting my skin.. frying me alive... then the birds flew over, a black shadow against the clear blue sky... and i was back there; that horrible day.. the day that i died...
    Screams echoed in my ears, the sounds of the dead and dying all around me.. the smell of gunfire searing my nostrils.. a smell that i will never forget... all i can think of is why here? why us? we had done nothing to them... why us?
    Then laughter brought me back to the present, i sat up slowly remember ing who i was and what i was doing before i fell into bed earlier that morning.... and remembered my past. Sharleen came in then with some tea 'did you sleep well Naeem?' i had to reply yes, how could i tell her that her home and community reminded me of last year.... once she had left the room after we had prayed at the homes shrine, i lay back on my mat and relented to the memories flowing over my body like water through a stream... the emotions overflowing with a volitility... i could not help but weep.
    again i was back at the station, my family... my new family. I had just been adopted that afternoon and i loved my new mother already... she had the most beautiful eyes, rich... warm.... alive eyes. She had just brought all of us some tea and we had just prayed for good fourtune for our 10hour journey home. Then they came.... i felt uneasy when they came by.... i did not know why at the time... i might have been a type of sixth sense that children seem to have. we know when someone is good or bad.... it may be that we are so innocent that we can have no recollection of lies and falsities..
    They passed us and moved deeper into the station... my bad feeling didnot leave... my mother seemed to notice my unrest and proceeded to distract me with stories of her village and of the family i would be meeting when we returned... telling me who i was, who i was going to be.... everything changed that night... the night i died....