July 19th, 1993 was supposed to be another hot summer day, playing badminton with friends and picking flowers to make fake fingernails.
I was 10 years old, running around with neighborhood kids in my short navy blue shorts and a t-shirt, looking boyish with a pixie haircut. Georgia was in the middle of a civil war after the collapse of the Soviet Union and my family, just like many other families I knew, had lost all their savings and used government-issued coupons to buy rationed staple foods, including bread that looked like a brick and had no taste. But I was happy. I finished elementary school with all A’s, made fun of boys who brought me flowers, and basked in my mom’s full attention while my older brother and grandma stayed in Ukraine to help my aunt take care of her newborn. I played checkers and dominoes with grandpa on the days mom worked at the ER and fell asleep reading poems at night.
On July 19th, I woke up feeling excited. Mom and I were going to get our hair done and visit my cousins. I decided to wear a hand-me-down dress that came down to my knees, instead of my usual shorts, and snuck out of our apartment while mom was doing laundry. Two bad decisions before noon.
There was no fire anywhere near me when I walked onto an abandoned basketball court in front of our apartment building. I picked up fallen leaves and knelt down to play with ants on the court’s cracked asphalt. When I stood up, I felt like thousands of needles were thrust into the back of my left leg, all at once. I turned around — flames. My dress caught on fire. I panicked and ran towards the other end of the court, where I could get water. Another bad decision.
A neighbor who was hanging clothes to dry saw me running with my dress on fire and yelled at the men playing dominoes in front of our apartment building. They chased me down and put out the fire, but not before one-third of my body had burned.
One of the men carried me to the clinic across the street. I could hear his heavy breathing as he ran. I worried about the fact that I was wearing only my underwear and that mom would get upset with me.
At the clinic, a swarm of nurses surrounded me in a dark room saturated with the smell of iodine. They forced me to drink valium, I spat out black water. A middle-aged surgeon with a skinny, tired face and a dark mustache glanced at me passing by and said casually, “She won’t live.”
Mom came running and broke into tears when she saw me. I apologized for ruining our plans for the day. More people came and even more had gathered at home, waiting for us to get back.
As I lay on the white sheet on the couch pulled into a bed, face down, naked, feeling nauseous from all the smoke I’d inhaled, I wished everyone gone. People whispered their theories of what had happened and whom to blame. I wondered if God could just put his hand on my burns and take them away, like nothing had happened and we’d all go back to our ordinary, perfectly boring summer day. If only I hadn’t snuck out that morning. If only I had worn shorts instead of a dress. If only I had rolled on the ground instead of running for water.
Mom decided not to take me to the burn center downtown— people with minor burns were dying there as a result of maltreatment, infections, or lack of proper medical assistance. In the early 90s, hospitals, like many other institutions, barely functioned in Georgia.
Moments in Words 