The Death of Africa: Part 1

Somehow the very atmosphere of my dream reeked with the undeniable fact that she was African. The air whispered that she was Africa. I dreamed I stood on the edge of a clearing filled with tall, dead grass. The clearing was about one acre and squatting in the center was Africa: a wrinkled old lady.

Looking closer, I saw she wore not more than four or five scanty rags. The rags clung to her diseased body in a half-hearted way. I flinched and stepped back though I could not tear my eyes from her hunched form. Her thin body was covered in some horrible disease’s handiwork that decorated her skin with splotches of purple and red flesh. My stomach heaved but could not give one drop to the parched grass between my toes.

It was not because I was ashamed at her conditions that my stomach heaved, but because I was ashamed at my conditions that could have changed hers. I have at least nine sets of clothing and consistently buy more. I have immediate medical help of any kind to use any time I so desire. I spent seventeen dollars on a cute top that I could have spent saving her. As I berated my past actions and wealth, she twitched with the start of a seizure. Then, I stood, helpless as she violently convulsed in pain and fell writhing on her face.

The winds of my dream carried my screaming doubts to and fro: I am no doctor! What should I do? My First Aid class was more than ten years ago! I ran to her side. Her three teeth repeatedly gashed her gums as her arms and legs flailed through the dream’s fog. I wrung my hands as I struggled to think clearly. I had to save her, but how?! I fumbled through my pockets as foam began to bubble out her mouth.

When I felt a cold, hard rectangle in my back pocket I shrieked my relief; now I could call an ambulance! Africa would be saved, and I would be her savior! Not wavering a bit, I pressed the “ON” button.