Her Name Was Katrina

BY BRANDON HOOKS

All my children call me “Mother”, and nothing else; all six billion of them. Over the many millions of years that I have existed, courtesy of the hand of the Divine; I have watched in supreme joy and rapture, the births of over billions of children that I adore and most cherish.

I found myself always wondering just how far I might go in reproducing more delicious fruit. My family was enormous and getting larger by the day. I have nurtured my children, played with them, and even cried on them over the years. Ironically my shed tears are what is needed for their survival. They must experience my pain to live.

However, no pain that I have ever experienced over the billions of years has matched the agony I felt when my precious ones began a campaign of  failing to take care of themselves, and ultimately abusing me. For years they have treated their mother poorly, and I don’t understand it, when I gave them life! This hostility towards me sent me over the edge to the point where I was no longer myself, at least for about seven days.

The day was the 29th of August, 2005, when a second personality of such a destructive nature forced me to take the lives of over 1800 of my own children! Her name was Katrina. Over a span of about seven days I grew sicker and sicker as this monster side of me slowly began taking shape. I couldn’t tame her. Everything was in place for this personality to grow into murderous rage.

They debated amongst themselves if they were really the prime factor in my growing insanity, or if there was some external circumstance or force that was causing me ill and disturbed. I had to blame them. I was good to them. I protected them. The forces of the heavens above have had it out for me forever, firing off their huge bullets(asteroids) at me but luckily missing me, and sparing me from ruthless murder. My own children have even threatened my unintentional manslaughter by fighting each other over hundreds of years, and now with the technology my brilliant, intelligent kids have come up with, have the tools and the weapons to not only kill themselves, but their mother along with them!

Will they not see what they are doing to the one that loves them more than anything in this great universe? They wonder why I cry so much, resulting in catastrophic flooding. They are killing me and sending me to a lonely grave. All I have are my children. Katrina is growing and growing.

For days preceding the time where I would slaughter my children while pounding them with my tears from a shattered heart, they prepared themselves; knowing that I was sick and that I had already given the personality of mine the name of Katrina. They prayed that she would die, and that Mother would come back and make everything better, but that would not happen. I was gone for those long days, when thousands of my babies ran from their own mother as if I was a wrathful, vengeful tyrant.

My depression really set off about a couple of days before the day of murder. The tears fell, and the children knew that Katrina was taking over and was near breaking point. I thought maybe I would run into something that would treat this and allow me to be myself again. There was a small chance of that but not great enough.

Sadly enough a large bulk of my children didn’t see what was really coming, and didn’t heed the warnings of their fellow brothers and sisters who were saying that mom was really not well and that Katrina was something not to be taken lightly. These little ones knew the destructive force of Katrina and that she was mean, and cruel.

The day came on Monday morning August 29,2005 when I cried hysterically as thousands of my babies fled in terror the murderous side of me; Katrina! Some thumbed their noses at me right before I sealed their fates, by sending them to a watery grave in my drowning powers and strengths. When the tears had ceased and the act of mass murder was over, the count was something I would never recover from, and neither were the ones that luckily escaped my nightmarish deed. Almost 2000 of my own flesh and blood died due to something that had thrown me into a crazy downward spiral.

The days afterwards were spent by me and my children, grieving the senseless loss, and preparing funerals for the ones that were accounted for. The ones that could never be found were lost into oblivion, and forever collected in my thoughts and memories. I recovered and was back to Mother again, but would my babies revive? Would they now listen to the warnings by their own brothers and sisters, that mistreating mother was something that hurt her and made her ill mentally?

The remnants of Katrina were still around and I would cry and cry at my loss, wishing my children had taken a different course. Why couldn’t they just take care of themselves and their mother? That was all I asked. Would this be the end, or was it too late to redeem all my six billion children from destroying me and themselves? If only they would feel satisfaction with just one car, and most importantly, if they would just put down the dangerous weapons and talk it over, then maybe we could continue to be a family.

What do you think?

Comment or review on Her Name Was Katrina

Reviews:

I loved this story. I think this writer has great potential and he’s going to be very successful one day.                                                                                                                                                                                    –  Lauren   4/5/07

This was excellent.                                                                    –  Liz   1/31/10

I found this story one of the best I have ever read in this site. Congratulations. A very promising writer.                                                                                                                                                                              –   Salwa Aleryani 3/22/10

Other short stories by Brandon Hooks:

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