One year before now around this time, I would have been totally convinced that my life was organised in a very good way. I owned a small flat, had a regular job, and two or three friends who were in contact with me now and then. It was not something of great value, but it was just enough to make me feel okay.
The event then happened. It was a very calm and quiet Tuesday evening. I had just finished my cooking when the building was struck by a loud and terrifying shaking. A loud crash that was splitting the night was combined by a bright fire. The fire was consuming the exploded apartment downstairs. Smoke was everywhere. The glass from the windows was broken and lying on the ground. The people were screaming.
I can't recall exactly how I escaped. What I do recall is that I had to carry my neighbor's crying kid as we were both stumbling through the smoke and I saw fire devouring all that I was familiar with. When the rescue arrived, the fatalities were two. Those who survived had partial injuries from the fire that lasted under an hour.
At first, I was convinced that the hardest part would be to begin with nothing, finding a place to sleep, and getting back the items that I lost. Nevertheless, the true fight came to be in the later days.
The echoes began.
I would be sitting quietly, and suddenly I’d hear it—glass breaking. Sometimes faint, sometimes sharp enough to make me flinch. It came at random times, in random places. Always glass. Always shattering.
I kept it a secret from everyone. To what extent would anyone believe me? It was not a thing that I could make sense of. Hence, I had kept it inside, wearing a smile when it was expected of me, while the echoes haunted me wherever I went.
However, the incessant noise disturbed me so much that I decided to sit on the floor by myself, close my eyes and cover my ears with my hands. But instead of getting quieter, the sound intensified.
And then I saw it. The memory of that night, clearer than ever. Right before the blast, I remembered a figure near the gas line below. A shadow moving fast, breaking something, then disappearing.
It wasn’t an accident. Someone had caused it.
I tried my best not to focus on the thought, but the same echoes that I tried to get rid of still kept returning. They were similar to a small voice, almost guiding me back to the fact. So I started secretly questioning my neighbors.
To most of the people, I asked, they answered that they had not seen anything. However, a mature woman told me that she had seen a man going to the gas line last night. She thought the person to be a worker but after the fire, she was quite disoriented.
And that's the only confirmation I wanted.
I went back to the ruins of the building. Charred walls still stood, black and broken. Glass glittered on the ground. I picked up a shard, and the sound came again sharp, urgent.
This time, I didn’t feel fear. I felt strength.
I realized the explosion wasn’t about faulty gas. It was about silencing someone. One of the men who died had been fighting a land dispute. He refused to sell his property, even under threats. Now it made sense.
It wasn’t loss. It was murder.
The truth broke me, but it also pushed me. The echoes reminded me that silence only protected the guilty.
So I spoke up. At first, I told a friend. Then another. Then I wrote everything down and passed it to a journalist. Soon after, an investigation began. Evidence linked the explosion to people who had been forcing land sales in other parts of the city.
When I heard the news, the echoes softened. They didn’t vanish, but they eased. As if to say, “You did the right thing.”
Seeing it now, the accident is still a very unfortunate thing to have been experienced, however, it was a change of everything from that time on. The disaster removed stability, but it also gave the strength of courage. It continued to scare me with the broken glass, but it was with these pieces that it gave me wholeness.
I’m still healing. I still flinch when glass breaks suddenly. I still avoid fire. But I’m no longer trapped in silence.
At times, the echoes come back. I really listen to them. Not only pain is what I hear. I hear fortitude. A reminder that even some shattered fragments can shed light is what I hear.
It is possible that that which was intended to annihilate me was actually the very first step of my journey.
