Chapter 165: Unaware
"So you can read this?"
"There’s images, repeating shapes and sizes...it is not too hard. It is a collection of love stories."
"Love stories? Really? Like...what does this say?"
Baba was illiterate, like everyone else. Schools were regularly abandoned. Even if a teacher miraculously appeared to run it and teach them, it wouldn’t last long in charland. They were islands, so to speak, that were very prone to flooding. While not every char was the same, with some allegedly being quite safe, theirs was not.
Here, over eighty percent of people were poor. Here, it was devastation after devastation. Death after death. Husbands and the young would regularly leave their families in pursuit of a greater life. Blaming them had gotten exhausting.
Why stay? Beyond the fact that it was their home, the simple reality was that they couldn’t. There were no maps telling them where to go. Where was the closest settlement? Where were the cities? They had a vague idea but vague ideas weren’t enough. They needed concrete directions. Otherwise, they would starve, a death regarded by the people as the worst of the worst. A torturous pain like nothing else.
That was why the blame towards those that ran was exhausting. The runners knew just as little as the abandoned.
Life wasn’t hard. Life just was.
"Why am I being shown this?"
Adult Kazi’s question was but an insignificant tremor in the waters. His eyes darkened at the sight of his younger self reading to his father. At the time, he didn’t care. His world was devoid of life and his first four years of life reflected that sense of lifelessness. He sat there, cuddled with his father, reading to the man who had never once read in his life.
"Give me a second." Baba got up, gently pushing the young Kazi off his lap. Leaning on the walls, water drenched his butt. Baba returned with a small yet fully intact book in hand. Young Kazi had seen it before and didn’t utter a word. Adult Kazi frowned.