A MEMORABLE DISASTER by Behla Mustansir

Childhood Childhood Ahhh... To be a child. What a wonderful thought. The memory of childhood is probably clouded with the early school fights in the sandbox, and the inevitable mother-distributed lunch boxes. If that is the case, I am sorry. Childhood for me, was so far above and beyond all that. What do I mean? Well I will tell you... So, if you are comfortable, we shall begin… 

My childhood memories I remember it like yesterday. We were all waiting patiently for my father to come home from his workplace. He promised me that if he got his promotion, he would take us all to a famous hill station. The minutes felt like hours. It was the longest hours of my life. Then finally we heard the honking of our motorbike. I ran to the front door anxiously waiting for the news. He opened the door and marched in. My mother and I tried to read the expression on his face but of course he was looking down while taking his sneakers off. The suspense was killing me.

 Then he looked up. No words were spoken between us and him. He just gave us a blank stare. I didn't know what to think. I was scared to ask because I was so worried of the response. It was at that moment when he said to us, "Well everyone, pick out what you’re going to wear on the hill station this weekend." Excitement just jumped throughout my whole body. I sprinted upstairs to pick out what we were going to bring with us. I was so excited for the next two days, I probably only got about 4 hours sleep. Then the day finally came. It was Saturday.

 It was the only time in my life I was happy to hear the alarm clock go off. Of course, I was already awake for two hours before it actually went off, but I waited anyway. I jumped out of bed and ran to wake them up. They acted like they didn't know what we were talking about, but I didn't give them the chance to trick me. I then ran into my rooms picking out what I was going to take with me. I brought my favourite book. I picked out my favourite outfit and ran back into my parent’s room and ask when we were leaving. I was so relieved to see them already packing the bag. My mom bought all my favourite juices and made our favourite sandwiches. The train journey was hour and a half long. We were tired but excitement was rolling all over my body. We unpacked our ready to cook noodle and had a delightful lunch and then drove to a resort and had great fun all day. We were drained out completely and the sweat was marching down constantly. After a tiring trip, we drove back home.

 Well this is what you might be expecting but the unexpected awaited me! The journey boomeranged on us and what happened shouldn’t have happened.

 The night before leaving, we tried to cherish every sightseeing that the hill station could offer us. To do that we had a single spot left to be glanced. We left the mansion where we were leaving temporarily. We caught the bus we had reserved for that spot. The Tiger point was forty miles away from our current location. We started our trek to the point in the bus. The breeze was sheer cold surpassing even the thickest sweater. Predictably the rain started to drizzle down, placing itself on the leaves to be revolved into a dew drop.

 SWOOSH!!! SWOOSH!!! Two metal bullets pierced through the thick fog and landed on the tyres occasioning into puncture. Two men drove down the hill carrying heavy duty illegal guns. I was blinded but I managed to recognise the guns (AK47 and HAWK Pistol). Both of them marched towards us and snatched everything we had (jewellery, cash, contacting devices etc.) and threatened us by showing gun point.

We came back to our room and felt isolated as well as disappointed. We weren’t able to sleep that night. The next day we returned back home and tried to erase that incident from our life.