Aunt Cindy's Bizarre World

I woke up a day later in the local hospital. A nurse told me I had been very lucky. I was being treated for smoke inhalation and minor cuts and contusions. When I asked about my parents she gave me a sad look and informed me that they had been lost. My parents were both dead and all we had owned in the world destroyed.

I cried a long time for my mom and felt shame that I could not cry for my father. I was also in turmoil over what was to become of me. A social worker from the state came to visit me in the hospital on the third day after the fire. She was a very nice lady who took the time to explain to me that it was the law that my closest living relative would get guardianship. She told me that they had managed to track down an aunt named Cindy in New York City and that she had agreed to take custody of me.

The Pentecostal in me almost started to protest. I bit my tongue before saying anything that would stop the state from giving her custody. I was scared half out of my mind of her after hearing my father rant about her wicked ways. I was however also intrigued and saw that it was a way out of this dirt water, bible thumping town and a ticket to the real world. I had seen photos of Manhattan and knew it was going to be huge change in my life. I had never even seen a small city let alone one of the biggest, wildest cities on earth.

I asked the social worker about my situation with clothing. All I had in the entire world was the embarrassing hospital gown I was wearing. She assured me that the state would provide me with a few changes of clothing for travel and that my aunt had told her on the phone that a new wardrobe would be waiting for me. If I had only known at the time what that would mean I would have spoken up!

Chapter2

It was week later when I found myself boarding a plane in Oklahoma City. I had a seat in tourist class on a Boeing 707. I was lucky enough to have a window seat and watched in fascination at the landscape below. I watched, as the flat lands of the mid west became the mountains of the northeast. I was able to see the concrete canyons of Manhattan in the distance as the plane came in for a landing at JFK in Queens.