I Remember... #amwriting

I remember it well. It has been over 100 years, but still the image is burned in my mind, the day of fire and flood. Watching from the boat as the village disappeared, not once, but twice, and then forever. You could see the high-rises even as far from land as we were. They were standing to attention along the shore, side by side, like children lined up for inspection by their teacher. And so many children there were, playing, learning, sneaking out to play.

A few, like us, had taken the afternoon off to go fishing and we had just thrown our nets. As the ropes fell with a gentle 'shhh' across the still water, so they came. The flames. Cast with so little care, ensnaring our little village, from east side to west. The school, the flats, the shops, the fishing towers, the small quay. The trees, the scrublands, all instantly transformed into a jolly, dancing, waving orange torrent of heat and pain and screams. People ran from the buildings, like fleas jumping from a diseased rat, hundreds of people, some strangers to us, some family and friends, all trying to reach the shore to stop the burning.

No sooner had they reached sanctuary of their sacred Lake, the water rose up against them, a benevolent parent standing to scoop up a wobbling toddler, so the sea met them and took them. Within minutes our home, our little peninsula had been razed to the ground and then sunk. We caught not just fish that day.