Wendigoon

Since the school was simply across the field, visible from my window, it would have been easy to go for a few hours each day and come home quickly to care for them.

What was the point?

All I did was clean floors.

I was as useless to the world as I was to my family.

I tried to take Nadja to the hospital, but the journey was too long and taxing.

I brought her home, and she died that night.

After Naja and the baby were gone, well, I don't remember much.

I didn't leave my hovel, barely ate and slept, thought many times of taking my own life.

Attempting though it was, I felt paralyzed by my own helplessness.

The one thing that kept me sane was my radio.

I never turned it off once.

Even though I didn't listen to the words being said, in fact the channel I got the clearest was in English, I think, which I don't speak a lick of, but the voices, the music, the true knowledge that life existed beyond this violent city sustained me.

I have no idea how long passed before I saw the light of day again.

I was dizzy from hunger, so finding food was my priority.

my radio came with me of course since i first hold myself up it has gone everywhere with me it talks to me as i sleep and as i wake i don't know what it's saying but now i would die without it once i had some water and food it occurred to me that the only thing left to do was to go back to work so i did following morning i simply returned to the school where i was a janitor got back to work

Nobody made a big deal out of it.

Like I said, Nadja had been sick a long time, and those who worked at the school knew it.

I appreciate that no one had pestered me to come back to work during the hardest days of my life.

The teachers never said much to me, but we smiled at each other in the halls, and that mutual respect was perhaps the reason I decided to come back at all.

The place had gone to the dogs without me, so I simply grabbed my broom and rags from my closet and set to cleaning.