Something different: Seeking asylum

Seeking asylum

 

It is a quiet suburban street; a brick house with a tiled roof sits unassumingly in the middle of the suburban utopia. The lawn is well kept the garden sparse but tidy. Inside the modest house a woman is home with her young toddler and older son. It is school holidays and the older son is reading on the lounge.

Suddenly he is startled as a shadow looms over his book. He looks up in time to see a man lunge at him with a machete! He tries to scream as the blade pierces his skin plunging deeper into his heaving chest. Blood soaks his shirt as the blade is withdrawn and thrust again and again.

The woman hears a noise from the kitchen where she is preparing lunch for her children. She is unnerved by the noise, unsure of exactly why, but knowing in her gut that something is wrong. She slowly walks from the kitchen into the lounge room, she screams at the sight that assaults her.

A man tall and strong holds a large knife to his mouth, he is licking the red from the shining blade, his eyes widen in delight as he sees her, and he smiles as she sees the limp form of her son dead on the blood soaked lounge. Her scream seems to fill him with joy as he points the still dripping blade in her direction and laughs.

She sees her son bloody and severed, his vital fluids leaking, staining the lounge room carpet she knows he is dead, his life stolen too soon by the madman with the blade. Her only thought now is the safety of her young daughter. Her daughter is having a nap in her bedroom; the woman knows she must act quickly. She runs through the lounge within a few feet of the madman. She has to get past she has to save her child.

The madman lunges as the woman runs at him, his attack is wild and misses badly. He wasn’t expecting her to run in his direction, they rarely do that. She moved down the hall and he followed, curiosity momentarily overriding his blood lust.

She ran down the hall into her child’s room, her daughter looked up at her as she entered and immediately started crying from the sight of her distraught mother.  The mother bolting to the crying child lifts her into her arms and turns back towards the door. She is in a panic her mind reeling, she can hear the madman.

“Where you go meat? Gone to find me some more meat?” he booms as he approaches the child’s bedroom.

She turns toward the window, opens it with one hand, mustering the strength from some hidden reserve, like only a protective mother can. She climbs through ensuring her young daughter is safe. She runs holding her daughter tightly in her arms.

She looks at the house to her left, seeing no one is home she runs to the house on the right. The house has a large fence, a large dog barks madly at her as she approaches.  

‘Meat!” the madman screams as he appears from the shadows of the approaching night as if my some foul sorcery.

She looks around frantically as she strokes her child’s hair, there she sees across the road and a house down. The house has lights on and she can see a car in the drive way. She runs towards the home diagonally across the deserted road, her thoughts of safety assured as she passes the front fence and sees a neighborhood safe house sign on the brick fence.

She hammers on the door with her trembling fist.
“Let me in, please let me in!” she begs, grasping for breath.

You are inside the home she has fled to, you heard some strange noises and you have watched from the window. You saw the woman leave her house via a side window. You saw her move past other homes before seeking assistance at your own. You saw the woman carry her child across the road, not going down the end of the street to the pedestrian crossing.  You heard her knocking on your door and not using the doorbell.You know your house is safe alarmed and secure.

What do you do?


                                                                                                                                         KA