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3/12/2008

The Number Twelve

It was in the news and it was an awful description: "The wreckage of a small plane lies at a sports field after falling in a small neighbourhood in Santiago February 27, 2008. At least eight people died, including a mother and child exercising in a public park.

The death toll rose to 11 after the bodies of three more victims were found under the aircraft's fuselage."

Now there is a twelve victim. The day after the crash I dreamed of being beaten up. I was actually all torn, being my left leg in a very horrible shape, my flesh all exposed, and blood all around me. When I tried to get up I felt my head spinning out. I was dizzy. I could hardly breath. Then I saw a woman coming right across the room where I was, I thought she was the one who was torturing me, but she passed right behind me and left the room. So I tried hard to escape there. When I was about to get up I noticed that half of my right leg was missing. I didn't have time to think of what had happened I just had to leave that place. "I want to leave... I want to LIVE" that was the only phrase that came out on my head. I went to the window and jumped into the terrace of that room. When I was thinking on how to get down, the same woman came to the door and shouted, "Beatriz!" (And, bear with me, that's not my name.) Then I woke up and I knew I would see in the news about a woman who was very much in trouble, very hurt and had her right leg amputated. What was my surprise to know that it was not only that, but that her sister, who was exercising with her in the park when the plane crashed, just died three days ago. I recognized the face in my dream by the photo showed in the newspaper. I believe that she was trying to call her sister, she knew she had no chance of surviving and she wanted her sister with her. I have my eyes filled with tears and my heart fuelled with empathy and compassion to learn that Brave Beatriz is still battling for her life in a hospital here in Santiago.

My condolences go also to all the fifteen victims of femicide, killed by their own spouses here in Chile, only in this year of 2008 which just begun. The number on the same period last year was ten. And even when there were complaints about battered women, their partners still have the right to keep being too close to them, maybe a little too close. Let's close this chapter to a ZERO number for the next millennium or so.

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