20th of October, 1998
The day was hot; humidity filled the room, mom cooking her signature sweet and sour carrots. The scent of the dish filled my nostrils as a childhood delight. If I close my eyes I could still smell the scent of honey and pepper.
Mom could see that I was already circling the kitchen like a shark at his wounded prey. “Honey, your birthday is next month. What do you want me to do for you?” a thousand ideas popped into my head, from my favorite cartoon, to my favorite hero; but one thought just kept coming back, a family eating.
23rd of October, 1998
I didn´t sleep much that night the breeze cut away totally. I ran to my mom´s room as soon as I woke, I remember the worried look she had on her face as she watched the weather channel. “We have to prepare, something bad is coming”
2nd of November, 1998
The storm has passed, the lights are back up and the television is working again. “Mitch dropped historic amounts of rainfall in Honduras, Guatemala, and Nicaragua, with unofficial reports of up to 75 inches, Deaths due to catastrophic flooding made it the second deadliest Atlantic hurricane in history; nearly 11,000 people were killed with over 11,000 left missing…”<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" /><o:p></o:p>
28th of November, 1998<o:p></o:p>
It´s finally my birthday, things are starting look the same again. No more rain and best of all the leaves are looking greener than ever, that night it blew a little but not as bad as it was. Mom woke me up with a kiss on the forehead and a birthday wish. I could already smell the chocolate cake baking in the oven; I knew there and then that she had planned something big. My head filled again with the same thoughts I had yet a month ago, in a way I´m glad that I didn´t answer her with “maybe just a family meal.” Since after all of what had just happened a few days ago. This would get my mind of it a bit I guess.<o:p></o:p>
I set off to get out of the way playing with some friends who were done informed to have me back by one o´clock that evening. We played along the water edge four hours, we were at war; conch shells as grenades, drift wood as rifles and bathing suits as uniforms. Our imagination got the best of us, things began looking a little too real, and even the bodies that were drifting around us, the distinctive scent they carried they seemed to have been rotting for days now.
They´re uniforms began to fade, and reveal shorts and t-shirts; bloated bodies, dead from the hurricane washing up right besides us. Counting in the hundreds they washed up, the vultures covered the sky above.
This was surely a birthday to remember.
