The Middle of the Dust Bowl | Teen Ink

The Middle of the Dust Bowl

May 19, 2010
By RobertoO PLATINUM, Barrington Hills, Illinois
RobertoO PLATINUM, Barrington Hills, Illinois
31 articles 0 photos 14 comments

Dear Dairy,

I want it to end, I want this seemingly apocalyptic event to end, it has brought nothing but abundant hard ache and unnecessary misfortune to my family and me. Life which was once quite quiet and peaceful has now turned into a life of not knowing if you will be alive the next day. Also, due to abundant dust storms, I can’t even go outside into our backyard without completely suffocating or gambling my very existence within our world.
Sure, it’s hard to stay in a small house continuously without even the smallest breath of fresh air, but I consider myself lucky. I consider myself lucky because I could be an individual suffering from dust pneumonia, or I could be the one who has no place to hide from the dark, overwhelmingly penetrative dust. Unfortunately, some people in my family aren’t as lucky as I am.
My brother Joseph is suffering from dust pneumonia, a disease which has affected a lot of our friends due to the blowing dust building up in their lungs. We are afraid that my brother might die, he is very sick and he can barely speak. Everyday, I hope that my brother will recover, for it will lacerate my heart, leaving it cut in peaces if he dies. As my brother lies in bed, I hold his hand and sit next to him along with my mother. Everyday, I witness my mother crying, praying for the life of little Joseph, who might die at the age of only ten. Joseph is in a constant state of abundant torture. He is constantly vomiting and is delirious as we speak. He also has a high fever and the delirium just increases. We can’t see a doctor because there isn’t one. I’m pretty sure that if a doctor lived ten miles from here, my mom would take Joseph and run all that way, risking her life to save him. I would have said that my mom would put Joseph in our car and drive him, but it was stolen a few months ago and we can’t afford another one.
I wish that my father was here, but due to ambitions towards suicide and the ownership of a gun, he is no longer with us. My mother calls him a coward and hates him for what he did, but, personally, I still love him and I will always remember him, even though I was only four at the time.

I’ve never thought about my father much before the dust storms, but it seems that the dark skies coincide with the metaphoric darkness that lies within every individual due to a multitude of memories, failed ambitions, and the occasionally harsh brutality of human endeavor. For course, if my brother dies, it will just me mom and me, just the two of us, living with the vivid, yet depressing knowledge of the downside of fate.








Yours Truly,
















Johnny



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This article has 1 comment.


on Jun. 7 2010 at 5:32 pm
RobertoO PLATINUM, Barrington Hills, Illinois
31 articles 0 photos 14 comments
Kinda bizzare how I was just sitting in my room, thinking of something to wrtie and the Dust Bowl just seemingly appeared.