Podcasts 180 - The Octopus's Garden

Story starts at 08:47

 

Every day the news comes in about the war in Gaza. The figures are grim and alarmingly consistent - between 100 and 200 innocent people in Gaza die every day.

I'm continuing with the second part of my story today, which I have dedicated to the HandsUp Project team led by my brother Nick Bilbrough and the children of Gaza. You can find out more about their work by searching HandsUp Project in Google - and I link to it from the audioscript and the show notes.

In this second part of the story of the Octopus's Garden, I'll discuss the meaning of seven B2 verbs. This is a B1-level podcast reaching towards B2 level with lots of new B2-level vocabulary. Here we go...

Part 2 - The Mouse and the Octopus

There was a scream above. Dunya lifted her gaze^b2 to the sky above the courtyard. A bright flashb2. Everything went white. Then, an enormous bang^b2 split^b2 the world. The rug beneath her was shaking violently^b2, so it rose into the air and flew slowly around the courtyard, which had now become silent. When the rug had once more dropped gently down with Dunya still sitting on it, the whiteness vanished^b2.

Dunya first thought it was snowing. She stood up, and opened her left hand, but the snow that fell onto her palm* was hot. She quickly pulled her hand back. If it hadn't been for the familiar rubber plants in front of her, Dunya would not have recognised where she was. The house had gone. Piles^b2 of bricks^b2 and stones lay around her. She thought it bizarre^b2 that, instead of a wall, she could see her father's furniture shop across the road.

Then she saw her mother's arm and head – bricks covering the rest of her body. Dunya had seen death before when her grandfather had died last January. Now she saw it again in the person she loved most. She forced herself to turn her head. As she did so, she saw other members of her family among the bricks: her little brother, who had been playing in his room (Dunya could make out^b2 a toy car in his tiny hand) her aunt, who had been cooking in the kitchen, still wearing her new apron…

Dunya's body began to shake, as it did so, she dropped the glass of honey lemonade she was still holding in her right hand. It smashed,^b2 silently, into pieces on the floor. A dreadful^b2 feeling of guilt^b2 rushed^b2 into her head as she realised it was one of her mother's favourite glasses. Dunya bent down^b2 and picked up two of the larger pieces of broken glass and tried to put them together. What would her mother say…?

Then there was blood on her hands. She had cut herself.

Strong arms lifted her to her feet. A man was looking into her eyes and shouting at her. She recognized him as one of her neighbours. She saw he was shouting but she could hear nothing. There were other men running around. One had tears in his eyes. Then another man pointed at Dunya's bleeding hands, so the neighbour picked her up in his arms and ran with her…

Dunya cried and screamed in the hospital for seven days and seven nights. She had not really been aware^b2 of the time that passed, but had heard that comment one day from the doctors talking to each other, so she stopped crying and screaming.

The doctors also said the drone* had landed in the reception room of the house and exploded killing every member of her immediate^b2 family and her uncle's family. They assumed^b2 Dunya could not hear their conversation, but now she could hear perfectly^b2 clearly.  

The feeling from her insides,^b2 of being pulled and torn by iron hands had stopped her from eating, but now her terrible hunger^b2 allowed her to eat something for the first time in a week. A doctor unwrapped^b2 some of the bandages from her hands so she could hold a spoon.

The next day, Dunya had a visitor. He introduced himself as Mohammad Ahmad Mansour, and was her mother's cousin. He was a young man with kind eyes. He said he felt very sad at the death of her family. He explained that it had been several years since they had visited Dunya's house, so that Dunya would probably not recognise him.

Mohammad said that she could come and live with him, his wife and son in a flat in the south of Gaza. He told her it was safer in the south, and she no longer needed to be in hospital. There was a school near his son's school, where she could attend classes.

Dunya looked at him, but neither^b2 smiled nor cried nor said a word, but she took his hand as they left the hospital together…

********************

Dunya's gaze^b2 was now right where the sea met the sky. There was no remote^b2 land on the horizon. She wondered how people could live in a place, from where no friendly countries could be seen. It was like being shut in a room where the only window was too high up to see out of. Dunya looked back at the waves, the only remedy^b2 that helped calm her pain…

********************

The buildings were tall and ugly in the area where Mohammad lived, and the modest^b2 flat was not beautiful like her house had been in Gaza City. But the welcome Mohammad's wife, Fatimah, gave her with her hugs and kisses was the first sign of real human warmth^b2 Dunya had received in days, and she collapsed^b2 in her arms – yet no tears came to Dunya's eyes.

Ali Mohammad was Mohammad Ahmad Mansour's son. Dunya usually found boys of her age foolish,^b2 irritating^b2 and insensitive^b2, but Ali was different. He was ten years old, like Dunya. When his mother introduced him, he stood up and shook Dunya's hand, looked at her in the eye^b2 and nodded^b2 his head sympathetically^b2.

Fatima told Ali to show Dunya his pet mouse. He kept it in his room in a rectangular^b2 cardboard^b2 shoebox*. Ali picked the shoebox up carefully and took off the lid^b2. A small brown mouse sat in the corner cleaning his face with tiny paws^b2.

'He's not a rat,' Ali assured^b2 her. 'He's a real mouse. He won't grow any bigger than this. That piece of cheese is his food just there, and that's a pencil I gave him to play with, so he won't get bored.'

Dunya was deeply^b2 moved^b2. A world within a world. This tiny creature that seemed somehow^b2 so involved^b2 in his face-washing, apparently^b2 completely unaware^b2 of the larger, more dangerous world around him.

'He's lovely!' said Dunya. 'But there's no light in the box when the lid's^b2 on.'

Ali looked at her in surprise. And Dunya realised those had been the first words she had spoken since the day the drone had fallen on her house.

Ali looked back at his mouse. 'Yes, there is,' he said enthusiastically^b2. 'Look, here. I've cut a little window at the top – but it can't be too big or he could get out.'

'He might like a bigger home,' suggested Dunya.

'Yes, he might. I'll try and find a bigger box,' Ali answered, and he smiled.

That night, the bombs fell again.

Mohammad told his wife and the two children to get up and get dressed.

'The block of flats in front has been hit, and so has the block at the end of the street. I don't understand why. There is no Hamas here. What's going on?'

Mohammad walked up and down the living-room, his hands in his hair. It reminded Dunya of her father just before the drone struck and the iron hands in her stomach gripped^b2 her insides painfully.

'Let's pack what we can and leave,' Mohammad said. 'We can go to my parents' home. It's only twenty kilometres away. It's just a village. Perhaps we'll be safer there. First, I'm going to see if they need help across the road. Nasir and his family live on the third floor. I must check to see if they're ok, then I'll meet you in the car,' and he ran out.

Dunya tried to assist^b2 Fatima with packing the cases. But she really didn't know how she could help. Dunya had no possessions^b2 herself, of course, except the thobe she was wearing. When Fatima, Ali and Dunya left the flat, Dunya had just the mouse in his box under her arm.

The street was strangely lit with orange flames and people running and shouting in all directions. Then Dunya felt the hot snow on her face. She tripped^b2 over bricks, broken stone and glass, so the images^b2 she had previously pushed away from her mind came once more, and Dunya panicked^b2.

Dunya just ran. She ran as fast as her legs could take her. She ran and ran. Eventually^b2, she left the streets of the town and found herself in a dark lane^b2. The street lamps disappeared and although she could not see her feet, she followed the bright stars, clearly visible^b2 in a black sky.

*************

Dunya looked down from the waves and picked up the box. She opened it and looked inside. The mouse looked up at her and asked to be let out.

'I think you're a long way from home,' said Dunya. 'But better the world you don't know than the one you do.'

She lifted the box up gently onto its side and the mouse walked out and onto the sand. Before he ran off, he turned around and waved goodbye.

Dunya stood up and walked down to the sea. Suddenly, the waves lost their energy, became lazy and dropped into the deep. The water became as clear as drinking water from a glass jug, and the surface so still, it was like a mirror. She walked in. The sea was pleasantly warm as it soaked^b2 through the thin material of her thobe.

The water was up to her waist^b2 when she saw the octopus. He was sitting on the seabed looking up at her with his seven legs stretched^b2 out around him. The octopus seemed to be waiting for her – inviting her into his garden.

I don't believe Dunya intended to slip down beneath the surface^b2. I believe she just collapsed^b2 from tiredness^b2 and hunger^b2. Although by the time Mohammad, Fatima and Ali arrived after their desperate^b2 search along the beach, they just found an empty shoebox left on the sand. Dunya was nowhere to be seen.

Go back to part 1 of the Octopus's Garden...