The Night Diary

by Veera Hiranandani

It feels like we’re really in a story now. I’ve heard about stories like these, about people who flee their homes in a war with nothing but the clothes and food on their backs. Now that’s who we are, even though there’s not a war here, but it’s like a war. It seems almost like a made-up war. It makes each footstep I take feel numb, like my foot isn’t actually touching the ground, like I’m not in my body. We had to leave our chess set. We also had to leave my old doll, Dee. Deepu Aunty gave it to me when I was two, so I called the doll Dee to remind me of her. While I walked I thought about Dee, thought about her frayed orange and gold sari and the red color painted on her tiny lips. She even had little gold earrings dangling from her ears and a green jeweled bindi on her forehead. I suddenly missed her so much that my chest hurt, even though I hadn’t played with Dee since I was ten. She had sat in the corner of my side of the room to keep watch over me and Amil. Now she would probably be taken by a new girl who would find her. We walked all day carrying our packs. Dadi couldn’t walk that fast, so we went slowly. Papa said we had to cover at least ten miles a day, more if we could, and it should take about four hours, but with breaks it would probably be closer to five or six. Today, our first day, we walked seven hours slowly with breaks, so we probably did around fifteen miles. Papa told us we could only have a small drink of water every hour, which was hard, but I only s...