Short Story/ Creative Writing

She watches the distorted shapes of the adults scavenging through the ghetto, like vermin, for food and information. Mr Carsten's radio filters rudely through the ragged plywood partition. The announcer is listing off more restrictions. Her officiously bored voice is cut off in mid xenophobic rant as the scream of the sirens pierce the routine drudgery.

The ragged gray figures are frozen in place, as only their drenched heads move, in unison, to locate the eerie whistling sound. A sudden perfumed gale blows the cling wrap window into the young girl's face as she is thrown back. The gentle silence is broken by intrusive radio static. Picking herself up, she is disquieted by the lack of response.

Where there should be adult voices screaming for their children and property, there are only the sobs of small children. Tiptoeing past her grandmother, asleep in the chair, she peers out the empty windowsill and sees hundreds of children's heads, likewise craning hopefully. The adults are all laying down where they fell, like rats after a flash flood. The ghetto children venture outside their hovels to wake their immobile parents. The rain is still drizzling as more and more children crowd into the narrow streets.

She approaches Nana and gently pulls her arm. Nana's body crumples to the floor in a slow motion, serpentine, slither. The radio crackles to life next door and a timid young voice pleads for help over the airwaves. Children now rule the world. Can they do better?