Two days. This is how long Benedito spent buried under the rubble of the collapsed hospital. He no longer heard that mysterious voice, he had no one to talk to, the air became almost unbreathable, the pain that permeated his entire body made him urinate with pain more than once, and no matter how much he screamed, how hard he fought, no one came to his rescue.
Benedito was at the end of his sanity, he no longer had the strength to try to fight for his freedom, and he could no longer fight for his life. In the midst of all this suffering and pain, the words of the mysterious voice continued to permeate his thoughts and clouded his conscience.
What price would he have to pay?
How much more pain would he have to go through so that his life could be lived without pain?
Benedito's mind, which should have been only a child of five, was forced to mature quickly. When your own survival is put at risk, no matter where or how, your mind will always look for a way to try to get out of your predicament alive, even if it costs a part of you. In Benedito's case, he had to give up his innocence and his childhood.
Benedito's will to live seemed to have been condensed into a living being that lived inside Benedito, causing him, a 5-year-old child, to make decisions that were not appropriate for his age. He tore a piece of the hospital clothing that he was wearing before the collapse. He urinated on the torn piece of cloth, and then took it to his mouth and drank it.
As disgusting as this may sound, in a situation where your life depends on it, desperate measures must be taken. After this, Benedito had to find a way to deal with his hunger. The space he was in was cramped, but still allowed him some freedom of movement, although it was minimal.
The problem was that Benedito saw nothing he could eat, other than rocks and more rocks. At some point, after digging through the rubble until his hands were sore, Benedito found something that almost made his will to live fade away. He found the body of an adult person.
Underneath all this rubble, all that could be seen was darkness, there was no light source, the sun did not reach this place, and there was no artificial light. Benedito found the body simply by using his hands to know what was in front of him, and when he felt something that seemed to be meat, he was happy, because he had found food, but this joy didn't last when he noticed that what he found was a body.
Benedito's first thought was to curl up in a fetal position and cry himself to sleep, but he didn't do this, he fought back the tears that were already threatening to come out of his eyes and continued digging with his hands, while the pain of having the flesh of his fingers torn from the collapsed walls threatened to make him scream in pain until his consciousness faded.
At the end of the second day, Benedito found insects and ate as many as he could catch. Benedito was sure that they tasted horrible, but after two days of starvation, for Benedito, this was simply a heaven-sent feast.
"Deuteronomy 8:10
So when you have eaten and are satisfied, you shall praise the Lord your God for the good land he has given you." Benedito muttered in a hoarse voice.
And so, Benedito survived for another day. This cycle of waking up, crying in pain, drinking urine, and hunting for insects persisted until the fourth day when Benedito heard a rhythmic sound of metal hitting metal against metal. Benedito knew that he was at the end of his strength, even though he was trying his best to survive, it was far from being enough.
When he heard those sounds he thought it was the mysterious voice searching for him, and for this reason he grabbed a piece of iron that was beside him, which he used during this time as a crutch, to prevent him from ending up catching a poisonous insect.
Benedito tried to replicate the sound he heard, but he soon noticed that the sound he made himself was too low. He put more force into it, but couldn't continue for long.
"Haa, haa."
Gasping for breath, Benedito struggled to breathe but noticed that the air was not coming toward his lungs. Desperation began to invade every part of Benedito's body as breathing became impossible, and in a desperate attempt to ask for help from the mysterious voice, Benedito used the piece of iron to hit a metal pipe next to the body he found two days ago, which was already in a state of decomposition.
Pam!
Pam!
Pam!
Benedito exhausted all his strength and oxygen, and shortly after, his consciousness faded away, falling into the void of oblivion and the darkness that is a mind without thoughts.
When he awoke, Benedito found himself in a large open space, with several people lying on sheets on the floor, some with oxygen masks, while several other people, who Benedito assumed were doctors, were helping in the search and rescue of the new people that were found in the collapsed buildings around them.
Benedito tried to stand up, but it was then that he could no longer ignore something he had ignored for the past 4 days. He couldn't feel his legs. Looking down, he noticed that he still had his right leg, and half of his left leg was still there, but he couldn't feel them. He tried to punch his legs in an attempt to feel something, even a little pain, but he didn't feel it.
Benedito didn't cry, complain, beg, or try to get up once more. He didn't feel anything anymore, couldn't see anything, and seemed completely empty of emotions at that moment.
No, to be more precise, he felt something. He felt total and complete hopelessness.
It was at that moment that a verse that his mother always said came into Benedito's mind, and even with his oxygen mask covering his face, he couldn't stop himself from muttering that verse.
"Therefore do not fear, for I am with you;
Do not be afraid, for I am your God.
I will strengthen you and help you;
I will hold you
with my victorious right hand.
Isaiah 41:10"
*********************
After being rescued, Benedito underwent emergency surgery, because, in addition to the injury that damaged Benedito's spinal cord, there was also inflammation due to the time he had been without medical care.
At the end of the surgery and a short recovery period, the doctors and local authorities tried to find Benedito's family members but found no one. Benedito was already feeling numb, but when he learned that even his mother was missing, fear welled up inside his heart once again.
In the end, Benedito waited for the searches for months, while they stayed in a shelter, but no one found her, and they couldn't get in touch with any other family members, because besides the names of the people in her family, Benedito didn't know anything else. At the shelter, Benedito can say that they were some of the worst moments of his life. Being a weak child, and now a paralyzed child, he had no way to fight for food, no way to compete for a good bed. The other children would play by knocking him out of his old wheelchair, finding it amusing every time he fell out of the wheelchair and hurt himself when he hit the floor.
July 16th, 2010
On this particular day, it was a really terrible day for Benedito. The shelter was to be closed due to a lack of funds, and Benedito would be sent to a shelter. Benedito wanted to scream and refuse, he wanted to run away and go find his father (he didn't know that his father had died), he wanted to look for his mother, he wanted to go to his grandparents' house, but he still remembers the last time he tried to run away from the shelter what happened to him.
On March 8, 2010, Benedito tried to escape from the shelter for the first time. A few blocks away from the shelter, he was caught by the soldiers of the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti, and it can be said that his end was not good in the hands of those people. Benedito thought those men were soldiers who were supposed to bring peace to his grandmother's country, but all they could think about was how they could make some money off Benedito, either by having him sell his body or by selling him to some philanthropic-minded old woman in another country.
A woman in her early 20s saw the whole scene and tried to help him, and she really succeeded. But the price? She had to lie down with every soldier who had caught Benedito. Benedito cried a lot after this and asked why this gentle woman had done this.
With her body covered with bruises and open wounds that stained her beautiful black skin, the woman smiled at Benedito, and answered truthfully:
"Les enfants sont l'avenir du monde. Si nous, adultes, ne pouvons pas protéger la génération future, qu'est-ce qui nous différenci'e des animaux ? (Children are the future of the world. If we adults cannot protect the future generation, what would differentiate us from animals?)"
Upon hearing this, Benedito once again cried, and only stopped crying when he fell asleep. When he woke up, he was back in the shelter, but he didn't try to escape anymore. He realized that even outside these walls of this shelter, everything he represented to people, especially the good-hearted people, was a burden. He was a burden, and he didn't want to make other people suffer because of him.
...
..
.
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