MEELA

Was he a hero or was he murderer?

It was a cold blizzard. The wind moved thirty-seven miles per hour, as sharp as the tip of chef’s knife. Raja and Meela walked through the blizzard in search of a warm and safe shelter. Meela was only five-years-old. She was a toddler that didn’t get much exposure to the public; people nor places. Raja lived in fear. She always thought someone was following her, she thought someone wanted to hurt her or Meela. She’s been scared to go outside ever since her mother vanished in thin air thirteen years ago, and later learned as a teenager that her mother was kidnapped after going out one night and spent two years torchered in the trunk of someone's vehicle. She had been tied by the wrists and ankles and rode around in a truck for two years with a serial killer who was never caught. Until one day, the killer left his gas-less car on the road and someone reported a suspiciously empty running vehicle. Upon inspection they found her mother inside dead. She was starved and bruised, wearing a torn red dress with missing underwear. Pathologists said she died from Hypoxia. Raja hasn't been able to live with that for thirty-one years. She was too afraid of the outdoors. When she gave birth, she kept her daughter in the house where she had eyes on everything that had anything to do with Meela.

“Are we almost there mommy?” Meela complained. It was freezing and the cabin Raja spent her last few dollars on, promising Meela a fun Christmas Eve, had been trampled by a snow avalanche. After discovering they had been buried and windows had burst, Raja decided to jump out the rear end where the snow hadn’t piled up. Together she and her toddler tumbled down a hill. At the end of the hill there were harsh whistles from the wind and two bodies. There was nothing out there, they still had their jackets and gear on from sledding earlier. All they could see was large white snowflakes flying across the sky, piles of snow stacked upon larger piles of snow. Raja picked Meela up and walked. A mile into walking to safety Meela screamed in pain. “Owie! My arm hurts.” Raja knew that they had fallen pretty hard and that Meela’s arm could’ve been broken, she didn’t want to know. Raja also knew that if she was hurt it would distract her from finding shelter and caring for her arm would take too much time. So she pulled the scarf off her face and wrapped it around Meela’s arm and shoulder. Raja stayed quiet as they continued walking. “Mommy! My arm is hurting! I’m cold!” Raja ignored Meela, she knew she was lost, she knew she was hopeless, she knew she was cold too, but she loved Meela beyond a point where she didn’t lie to her, not even a lie she knew Meela wouldn’t understand nor remember. The sharp wind tore through her cheeks as she bent low to cover Meela’s entire face with her hat. “Mommy! I can’t see anything!” Meela complained again. Raja lifted her toddler and carried her as far as her arms would allow her to. She walked with her head down to keep the wind out of her face, but nothing helped. She tried to walk backwards in the opposite direction of the wind, but still nothing helped. 

The wind was strong, it slowed her down, Raja leaned forward, pressing her weight into the ground.“Mommy! I’m cold!” Raja continued to walk with her toddler in her arms but when her toddler began screaming in her ear, Raja got frustrated with the cold. She couldn’t tell who was cold. Raja couldn’t feel the heat on her ears coming from Meela's mouth, and Meela wasn’t shivering, she was shaking. Raja stopped walking and put meela down, she took off one boot and removed her sock, as with the other foot, she placed both socks over Meela’s gloves, put her boots back on as tightly as possible and continued to walk with Meela in her arms thinking she was preserving body heat. Another mile into the blizzard, Meela’s cries in Raja’s ear began to annoy her. She had put the toddler down to walk and  Meela began to complain about being cold again. “Mommy! I’m cold!” Raja tried to ignore Meela again but this time Meela was covered in snow. No wonder she’s screaming about being cold, she’s wet and covered in snow. Raja stops just underneath a bridge of hardened snow and ice, where the wind still reeled in from both sides. All Raja had left was her jacket. Raja's greatest fear was leaving her child behind. She grew this last resourceful thought. She found a heavy block of ice, as heavy as two stacked bricks, she turned Meela around so she wouldn’t see, and hit her in the back of her head hoping it would kill her. Raja thought killing her daughter would keep her from suffering and freezing to death, but Meela ended up sitting in the snow with her hand on the back of her head screaming in pain. She felt guilty that her daughter annoyed her, she thought she had relieved Meela from the pain and fear, but Meela was still alive with blood dripping from her head, onto the socks placed on Meela’s hands. Raja stood there in shock. Not only was her greatest fear leaving her child behind, but her greatest fear was also seeing her child hurt, she felt awfully devastated about hurting her child. She watched the blood drip, she felt her ears filled with screams. Meela’s arms now covered in blood, she continues to scream soaked from the dripping blood. Raja tried to keep her jacket to prolong her survival, but deciding who would survive got difficult. At last, she took off her jacket and covered Meela, trying to keep her warm.

“I want to go home Mommy!” Cried Meela. Raja was so cold she couldn’t continue the search for shelter. Her hands and face had gone numb, her front tooth had chipped from quivering so hard. She looked down at Meela who was still crying and leaking blood, “We’re going to die out here” Raja finally said to Meela. “We’re going to die. I’m done.” Raja knew Meela didn’t know what that meant, but it felt good to be honest. Raja leaned against the bridge wall, slid down in the snow and wrapped Meela in her jacket. She held her and listened to Meela cry and complain about the inevitable. There was nothing else she could do and had walked miles to nowhere. Hours passed by and Meela had gone quiet. Raja was quiet again. Meela moved her arm trying to tap her mother “Mommy! Can we go home now? I’m cold!” There was no response. Meela asked again and again and again, until finally there was a distant voice in the wind. “Hello! Is anyone here! There are footprints leading this way. Hello?” Meela was scared, she went silent, she called out to her mother again who didn’t respond. An old black man followed their footprints. He walked under the snow bridge and stood over Raja’s frozen body with Meela’s body clinging in Raja’s arms. “Jesus Christ.” The man sighed and shook his head. “Well, little one? There won’t be any use or hope for you here with momma being frozen to death.” He pulls out a shiny black pistol and squats in the little girl’s face, he touches her arm and Meela screams in agony. “Lord forgive me, but aint no way I can leave this poor baby to suffer alone.” He prayed. He aimed the pistol at the little girl and shot. POW! 

Therein lay Raja and her five year old daughter, Meela, in the blizzard where the snow covered their bodies completely by nightfall. The man walked away, disappearing into the blizzard feeling like a hero, thinking of the great shame. He couldn’t decide what he was, a hero or a murderer.