Bomb Shelter

Contains themes of war and death

Bomb Shelter

The town had been bombed again last night. The bombing went on for over five hours. The air raid warning sirens wailing and then being drowned out by explosions and collapsing buildings and screams of terror.

As daylight broke and the bombing finally stopped, everyone started crawling out from wherever they had been sheltering to inspect the latest devastation. Fires were still burning in some buildings and fire fighters, covered in soot and dust, were battling flames and smoke to extinguish them. They looked exhausted.

It was unclear yet whether there had been any loss of life, but judging by the damage, it was hard to imagine that everyone had got away unscathed. There was a gaping hole where a three-storey office building had stood yesterday, the buildings either side of it appeared to have escaped with minimal damage. It looked like a missing tooth and looking at the dust cloud where a building should have stood, set my teeth on edge.

As for myself, I had been sheltering in an abandoned hospital for the last few weeks, after my home was hit by a missile and flattened to the ground. I wasn’t in when it happened. I was out trying to find food, so, ironically it was the starvation that saved my life.

The hospital wasn’t ideal, the windows had all been blown out in past raids, the blinds and curtains hanging in torn shreds at the frames. The side of the hospital facing the park was very badly damaged. The hospital beds were covered in debris, one had a hole right through the middle of it. The metal bed frames had buckled and stood at warped angles. There were twisted metal and lumps of concrete laying in the dust on the floor, along with once sanitised medical instruments. Drug trolleys were tipped over on their sides. Monitors had smashed screens. The wall in one ward had a large crack zigzagging down it from ceiling to floor that looked like a lightning streak. The crack gave me the heebie-jeebies, and I avoided that side of the hospital completely, worried it might collapse at any moment. I suppose that’s why the hospital had probably shut down. Or maybe patients and doctors and nurses had been killed here. I didn’t know. I didn’t want to dwell on it. But at least there were no putrefying bodies lying around.

Two of the wards on the east side of the hospital were pretty much intact, apart from the blasted out windows. The beds still had mattresses and bedding on them, so I could sleep quite comfortably and keep warm, despite the icy wind that blew through the broken windows. I picked the bed furthest away from the windows, so that the wind had lost most of its energy by the time it reached me. The heavy beds also doubled up as a decent shelter to hide under when the sirens started up.  

I discovered a small kitchen that had survived the air raids, apart from its cupboard doors that were hanging off their hinges. It looked like it was the staff kitchen because the mugs were all mismatched, like the nurses had brought them in from home. Mugs that were probably unwanted gifts and given a second lease of life in the staff kitchen. Ugly mugs that had also survived the hospital bombing. There was no electricity obviously, but I’d found some left behind food there – porridge oats and cornflakes. They were hard to digest raw and dry, but they were better than nothing and keeping me alive.

It was still terrifying though. The trembling of everything as bombs dropped. Dead monitors shaking on their stands. The metal rails of the beds clattering. And the isolation. I was surprised no one else had discovered the abandoned hospital. I did spot a rat on the third day there. It scuttled past me whilst I was lying tightly curled up, scared, on the bed. I’d covered my ears and screwed my eyes shut as a bomb exploded near or far away. I opened one eye to check my hospital surroundings once the bombing had subsided and it had gone quiet again, and that’s when I saw the grey, scrawny thing’s long tail. I considered trying to catch it. I was worried it might discover my little stash of food in the kitchen. But by the time I had uncurled, the rat had disappeared into the corridor. I went looking for him but couldn’t find him. At least he wasn’t in the kitchen. I never saw him again.

I kept expecting to be joined by someone else at some point. I half wanted the company, but I was also terrified that they would fight with me, wanting my food and my bed. War seemed to have one of two effects on everyone: solidarity in a crisis or territorial and greedy. There was no in-between state. But no one ever came. It was just me.

And now they definitely wouldn’t come. Because the hospital had been hit again last night and it was one of the buildings at which the fire fighters were tackling the flames. I wondered why they bothered when it had already been abandoned. I mean they didn’t know that I could have been in there. How could they have done?

But I wasn’t in there. Yet again, fate had saved me. I’d gone for a walk late yesterday evening, after dusk, after the curfew, when the streets were quieter. I was heading towards the river, one and half kilometres away, for some water, when the sirens started wailing. I froze, quickly trying to calculate if I could make it back to the hospital in time before the bombs started falling, or whether I should try and find somewhere to take shelter right where I was. Then I spotted the bright globe of white light zooming across the sky, heard the piercing whistling noise, and three seconds later, the red-orange explosion in the distance as the missile struck its target.

People started scattering and running. But not in a panicky way. They had gotten used to running for cover, like they were simply running for a bus. More and more people joined a throng that was growing in mass and moving in the same direction. So, I joined them and followed them, trying not to get trampled.

A woman stopped and looked at me, and said, who are you? She scooped me up in her arms, wrapping me under her big, heavy coat. Come on puss, she said to me, your nine lives aren’t up yet. And she carried me all the way to the air raid shelter. I stayed under her coat all night, listening to her heart beating. She tore off little bits of ham from her sandwich and fed them to me. When the all-clear was given in the morning, she beckoned for me to follow her home, where she gave me a saucer of milk and half a sardine. I know I’m not meant to have milk, but I was so thirsty and it was so delicious with the salty fish.

Then I walked back to the hospital and discovered the fire fighters putting out the flames. My safe east side haven was gone. My porridge oats and cornflakes were gone. I saw a dead scrawny, grey rat lying in the road.

I walked back in the direction of the river. I retraced my steps from the house of the lady with the big warm coat and milk and sardines.

You’re back, she said to me, smiling. Good, she continued, because I’ve been so very lonely since my darling husband was killed by the bomb that hit the hospital.