Soon all of this will come to an end. I will have to give up on these children who I love so much, these animals that heal me, the music that lights up souls will be apart from me. I chose this. Right now there are two children whom I take care of, their parents have busy lives and I don’t. This job will soon be gone though, and this beautiful house will, too. I enjoy my time with the children, teaching them the ways of my life, hoping that they will enjoy the wisdom and seek it later in theirs. 

When I wake up, I like to drown myself in the light of the sunrise. After I have gotten dressed for the day, I go outside. I try to bend down to pick up the hose to water plants, but my height makes it a struggle. Suddenly, I remember that I have to go get groceries before the children wake up.

 As I’m walking there, I spot an elder I know. I respect him, so I greet him in Amharic, but I know both Amharic and English because it is common here. I bow and kiss his knees. I remember him being one of the people from the neighborhood- as he’s carrying groceries. I offer to do it for him, because where I’m from, you take care of your elders.

I continue on my way to the store and I buy ingredients to last a while. I buy chicken, herbs, seasonings, and flour for injera and doro wat, my favorite meal, the kids happen to love it too, so it’s convenient. The meal cost 130 birr, which would cost more at a restaurant, so I cooked.

   I am currently staying as a nanny in a very nice house located just outside Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. I work as a nanny here because the people who hired me are high income workers who are gone a lot and have two small children so they needed someone to hire. I come from a very rundown part of Ethiopia, so when I saw that they were in need I volunteered. I offered to work for them for cheap just to escape the need. While they could’ve hired anybody else in this population of 110 million people.

 When I get home I start the stove to cook, and wake up the kids. They get me a bar of soap to wash my hands before I cook because I’m their elder. As I begin cooking they sit patiently while I tell them a story, a story about how I lived life before here.

 “I worked on a coffee harvesting job, because coffee is the main form of 

getting birr here. It made me realize no matter how hard I worked, I would always be experiencing inequality,” 

as soon as I said that both of their heads turned towards the jar of roasted coffee sitting on the bar. Jamal, the older of the two siblings, then pointed at it and curiously asked 

“That’s seriously what makes the most money here?”  Eyerusalem, his little 

sister, then scolded him

“Jamal! You know you’re not supposed to point at things! It’s rude!”

“Oh, sorry” he sounded regretful, so I just barely scolded him. I told him that 

if he ever wants to signal toward something to use his eyes and head.

After they finished eating we headed outside to get fresh air. We lay on a hammock for a while, then we saw something giant. A giant humanoid figure. As they try to understand what it is we run inside and turn on the television. They show that there was a chemical leak near the market I was at a few hours ago. As they pinpoint the location we hear this neighborhood getting destroyed, as a roaring voice screams about how they deserve better. As I look down I see the children hugging me, scared. I look at them with comfort and tell them with certainty that nothing will happen to them. As I try to comfort them I tell them I have to leave, that it’s for the best. I put them in their room and put headphones on them connecting it to the television so they’re less anxious, then I go.

As I’m running outside I hear crowds running and screaming. I yell at them to run into the house. But I ran the opposite way, I ran towards the house of the elder I crossed by earlier. I caused this, I need justice. I will do anything, I caused this all. 

I arrived at the house, and it’s a disaster because all the walls are broken. I ran towards the counter to find any remains of the food that man cooked. Almost all food in Ethiopia contains berbere. And the elder Mohammed bought some today, but as I helped him carry his groceries I sneaked in a chemical powder I made, dyed to be the same color as the berbere and I mixed them. The powder caused him to become a giant. And now so will I. I eat the food.

I want to throw up. It’s disgusting, but I manage. Suddenly I started to grow. The pain is excruciating but I’ll do anything. Now I’m two stories tall, then three, and lastly four. I can see everything, even the places I want to forget. I start to walk around crushing everything and possibly, everyone. I want to yell about the injustices I’ve faced, but I struggle to say anything at all. All I cry out was

“Help them” that’s when it all went black and I heard a loud ‘thud’ in the back of my 

mind. In my consciousness I thought about how I messed up, how the one thing I wanted I couldn’t do. All I wanted was to tell people about the unjustness I experienced. How although I worked so hard and did everything I could possibly do to make money, I couldn’t. How I had to live in difficult situations just because of the dirty deal of this business. I tried to help but I couldn’t. In the end all I did was cry about it. Now I’m forever in my consciousness.