I’m not really the sort of guy who reads a bible or even gives a hoot about what’s in it. But when you’re a foster child you’ve got to do whatever your foster family is doing, and there were a whole load of churchy foster families. Enough that I learnt the story of Noah and his ark. 

That’s what I dreamt about as the sound of rain woke me the next morning – I dreamt that Ayamin and I were the last humans on earth. We were sailing the world in a Winnie the Pooh shaped raft and would eventually have to repopulate the planet – a task I decided I would be rather looking forward to. 

After that dream ended, I opened my eyes to what at first seemed like bliss. The back of Ayamin’s body rested against mine, the heat of her back made me warm, even without either of us wearing a t-shirt and I could feel her every heartbeat through her soft skin. 

I didn’t really want to get up but my throat was dry. As I hopped off the inflatable mattress my feet sunk up to the ankles in cold muddy water. 

Blinking, I half wondered if I was still dreaming about Noah’s ark. 

But then I unzipped the front door and another layer of water slipped into our tent. I got a glimpse of thick brown water swirling through the camp. Raindrops pelted people as they left their tents.  

‘Ayamin?’ I called, sloshing water as I spun around. 

‘Mmh,’ she said. 

‘I think we’re going to have to move the tent.’

Ayamin stretched out. Her hand dipped into the water on the side of our bed, she opened her eyes, ‘Oh damn.’

‘It’s still raining as well.’

We stuffed everything dry into the pack and attempting to drain the water from our tent by lifting one side. After pulling out our poles and pegs, we threw everything onto the inflatable mattress and pushed it like a raft toward the border road. It was then, that we noticed the barrier. 

A large orange fence had been erected on either side of the road. A mob of refugees had gathered on the camp side of the fence, some of them were shouting.

Ayamin tapped the arm of a woman whose hijab was soaked and sticking to her face, ‘What’s happening?’ 

The woman pointed to the road and let out a stream of words too fast for me to understand. She looked like she wanted to cry. She kept talking until a little boy, probably no older than four tugged at her side. She picked him up out of the water. 

Ayamin turned to me, ‘They’ve blocked us from the road, they don’t want refugees holding up the traffic.’

I shook my head, ‘It’s the only ground above the water. What about us?’’

Ayamin stared at the fence, ‘I don’t think we matter.’

Near the orange fence, the young refugee men were getting frantic. They shouted strings of curse words at the guards, who had brought in something that vaguely reminded me of a bazooka. 

I took Ayamin’s hand as the men picked up rocks and mud from beneath the water and begin pelting the guards. 

 The grenade launcher went bang and what looked like a bomb exploded near the young men, showering them in a cloud of smoke. Refugees began to run, coughing as they went. Some reached down to the water at their feet and began splashing it frantically on their faces.

The grenade launcher turned to us and Ayamin grabbed my arm, ‘Tear gas,’ she yelled, ‘Let’s get the hell out of h-’

Ayamin was cut short as a shell exploded above us. She pulled her semi-wet t-shirt over her face, while I, in my stupidity, stared at the white vapour that leaked from it. 

As the first drops hit my eyes I blinked, the sensation was like getting soap in them, and my nose and my mouth felt like I’d been snorting pepper. As Ayamin pulled me away the burning slowly increased until my eyes were watering so much I couldn’t see. 

Ayamin dragged me until the screams of the people behind us had quietened. She told me to sit down and I felt the inflatable mattress underneath me. My skin stung and snot bubbled from my nose. 

‘Ahhhh,’ I screamed, rubbing my eyes. 

‘No!’ Ayamin shouted, slapping my hand away, ‘That’ll only make it worse. I’ll get you to the stream, but you need to blink those tears away.’

I did as she said, and my eyes began to clear slightly, but still stung like hell. With my eyes now open, I saw Ayamin was also blinking away.

‘Did they get you too?’

She shrugged, ‘Yeah, but it’s not as scary if it’s happened to you before.’ She wiped at her nose, ‘My first time, I thought I’d gone blind.’

She took my hand, and helped me up from our inflatable mattress/life raft, then pulled me towards the stream. There were already a couple of people there, lying face down in the water with just their underwear on. 

‘Time to strip,’ Ayamin said, throwing off her clothes. 

As I took my clothes off the stinging around my body increased. It was like having saltwater poured into a thousand little cuts. The moment I was down to boxers I let myself fall face-first into the swollen stream. 

The current carried me a few meters before I clung to the side of the bank. I opened my eyes then instantly squeezed them closed as what felt like little needles plunged into my eyeballs. But quickly the water carried the stinging away. By the time Ayamin and I came up for air, we were smiling again. 

Ayamin allowed the current to drag her down to me, and little raindrops clung to her skin as she settled beside me. 

‘Congrats,’ she said, ‘You’re no longer a tear gas virgin. How was it?’

I shook my head, ‘I don’t even think swearing my head off would begin to describe it.’

She laughed and wiped her nose before she hugged me, ‘I guess though you’re getting the true refugee experience, right?’

I wrapped my arms around her, ‘Yeah, lucky I was here to protect you just then.’

Ayamin laughed, then brought her lips to my forehead, ‘You’re my hero Danny.’

****

Even together, the stream quickly became too cold for us. We picked up our clothes and waded back to our inflatable mattress in the rain. Here we were faced with our original problem. 

The stream had burst its banks, water reached the tops of our feet, and we couldn’t go anywhere. But we couldn’t live in a flooded tent.

Ayamin shivered as I found her rain jacket in the pack. She leant against me and we held the jacket like a roof above us as we planned our next move. Around us, people were coughing in their flooded tents.

I heard the sounds of mothers trying to hush wailing children, and young women yelling at their teargassed husbands. After the craziness of the last few hours, I began to feel a cold disappointment begin to sink in. Ayamin shivered, and I pulled her closer to me. For once our combined warmth wasn’t enough to take the edge off the cold. She still shivered and so did I.

While we stood, we saw an old man emerge from the stand of trees on the other side of the stream. He carried a long thick stick to his tent and pulled out a small pocketknife. In ten minutes, he had sharpened the end of his stick to a blade. Then, using the stick like a shovel, he began mounding up the mud into a square patch around his tent. 

Ayamin and I watched. Within a few minutes he’d dug enough mud to make a small barrier around his tent and other people were emerging from the woods with sticks of their own. 

Without a word, Ayamin and I were on our feet and moving towards the woods. We crossed the swollen stream using a fallen tree and crossed back over with two soon to be digging sticks. Ayamin found a place where the water level only came up to the bottom of her ankle and I sharpened the two sticks. 

We began to dig. Both of us mounding up mud into a little platform. 

By the time midday had arrived, we had created a soft squishy base for our tent that hung a few centimetres out of the water.

‘Lunch?’ Ayamin said, handing me the pot of boiled rice from the night before. 

I was sort of in two minds about the boiled rice. One, I was starting to hate it because rice seemed to be all we ever ate, and two, in that moment I loved it because being teargassed, mounding mud, and freezing your ass off are great ways to work up an appetite.

As we munched, I watched the family who’d given me the campfire bread when we’d arrived. The family had just finished unpacking two of their tents and were beginning to unpack a third.  The grandma’s two sons came out of the tent carrying an older man in a wheelchair.

They carried him past their growing mound to a small pile of rocks they’d set up. The family stretched a small tarpaulin over the man in the wheelchair, and the grandma gave him a little food as work on the family’s mound continued. 

It looked like they’d started later than us and probably wouldn’t finish before nightfall. 

I looked at Ayamin, her hair and her shirt and everything were muddy and drenched, I was no better. The two of us were placing rocks on the sides of our mound to keep the mud from washing away when we sat our tent on it.

Ayamin dumped the last few rocks in place, then washed her hands in the brown water that surrounded us. 

‘Phew,’ she said, ‘I am dead.’

I shook my worn-out arms, ‘Then you’re not going to be so keen on my next suggestion.’

Ayamin groaned, ‘You want us to make the mound two stories high with an air condition garage below?’

I laughed, ‘Love the idea… but no,’ I pointed to the family, ‘I’m not sure if they’ll make it before dark.’

Ayamin rubbed her back, she’d worked hard, harder than I’d seen anybody work. She’d been tear-gassed, and only thought of me. The rain was still licking the ground around us and most people would’ve been crying to go indoors in that moment.

But Ayamin, she just nodded, ‘If they want our help, we give it to them.’

She trudged through the muddy water and grabbed her stick. I shook my head, it’s a little cliché but I knew then, I truly knew, that I was in love with her. 

She took my hand and together we walked to the grandma’s tent.