The Miraculous Night

Outside it’s dark. Port-au-Prince and its surroundings are in total darkness. The clock on the wall marks nearly eight hours. The first anniversary of the horror of September 11 approaching, the screen facing the bed, she sees the same emotion in the news, images confusing, upsetting, and commemorating the loss last year of more than three miles innocent. Her little boy of eight, as she looks and says nothing, whiles the crisp “egg rolls” that they soak in a dish containing Chinese sauce. They remember … They never forget.

Two, maybe three minutes, drain, other images of harsh realities related in Unsolved Mysteries, like every night of the week, March. Below the room, the noise caused by the iron fence with relief he announced the arrival of her husband.

“Open the door, open the door!” Understands she suddenly shout, with the danger, in a voice shrill, panicked. A first shot weapon tears the quiet of the night, and as in a nightmare, resonates throughout the house. She jumped out of bed, the flat of his hands, flew into the air. No sooner had she time to scream to her daughter of eighteen years, connected to the net in the office next door to shelter, she locks herself with a double turn with her son to protect him.

A second blow nearer did move to a second state, that no words would come, she says, to portray. His daughter in tears, called his father who is not responding. She now understands that the attackers are in the house! The lock on the door of the room low yield from one moment to another, she thinks, desperate. On the balcony, with all her might, she shouts the names of his neighbors, who just a few breaths meet around assisted by their guards. The ensuing gun fire makes him think about shooting on the fronts of war film.

On the tiles above his head in rain fall hundreds of splinters. “You hear the magic glitter?” She strangely inspired to tell his little boy to reassure him, squeezing him tightly in his arms. She thinks so many others who have experienced similar moments. The fatalities; suddenly an immense force to invade the calm. She began to thank God in a low voice for all his benefits. Twice before, the one who shares his life for over twenty years has escaped the violence, she herself more than once and her children too. She clings to that thought. In the house she heard the sobs increasingly weakened her daughter calling her father still does not respond.

The long silence that follows suggests that it is all over this time for her husband, perhaps even for his daughter. Images of his life in rapid sequence parade in his head. She imagines … imagine … Four, five, ten, twenty minutes? The time is gone.

Then like a dream, she thinks hesitant voice of her husband: “They’re off! Call a doctor! “First, it is hard to believe. “It’s Papi is Papi?” Asked his son, in a burst of hope. She has no voice, she just shakes her head affirmatively, slightly open, shaking the door of their room. Fixed, standing before her, her husband’s face, neck, stomach bleeding, without a word looks. The tiles are stained ivory bearings also his blood … It touches, it is cold. “I’m going,” he stammers, quietly, her lips barely moving, collapsing on the bed. Bewildered, shocked, in a giddy, it is observed by lifting the handset. Of the two phone lines, answering said that they “count is zero!”. As for phones, the word “Roam” is written on the dials, instead of numbers it tries desperately to score! So in a strange silence, she closes her eyes for a moment, to keep his lucidity. Daddy please, she said their son …

She pulls the door of the house without looking back. She forgets the oven on. Nothing matters more. His son, barefoot, is in her arms. In the street lit by the headlights, a dozen cars of friends, other friends of friends she does not know, surrounded by their guards are there to assist them to accompany her to the hospital husband now in the arms of their eldest daughter, so brave.

In the miraculous night, she hears the siren. In its wake, she sees the light reddish swirl … It’s not a dream. That life is fragile, she told herself. The way to the hospital in the car following the accompanying her husband, seems so long. He who leads, she sees for the first time. It is not known. With calm and compassion, he tries to reassure her, while on the radio communication voices fuse.

At the bedside of her husband, still on the stretcher, family and more than fifty friends are there. Doctors from all sides. The waiting room is invaded to comfort. Time evaporates at a rate that it can not evaluate … Finally, she heard the chief physician rule, “He does not see in one eye, but he will live!”

In another attack, one who was with him in the car, in turn, now finds himself paralyzed from head to toe, the column cut off by a gun!