Katrina's Flight

Every small town has a news reporter, one who cant wait for the news to be made known. And so it was in my small village. Our trumpeter ran wildly through the main street and all the side streets announcing the news in a rather loud and musical manner. The women ran to their balconies each time they heard his voice, but this time his voice had a stronger tone denoting the urgency of his message. As he was busy running and shouting the news, he wanted to be the first to spread the monumental event. There was no rewardthis is how he wasthis is what he enjoyed doing. Men gathered in small groups in front of the local cafs, while women gathered in less visible areas, but all with one common interest. They wanted to find out why and how this event could have happened. Katrina was only sixteen years old. The villagers were upset. They were angry at her parents for giving their consent for Katrina to marry and move to another continent. After all, she was their only daughter, and it seemed that their deci-sion to send her away held some kind of dark secret. Unaware of how quickly the news had traveled, Katrina was caught by surprise when walking to her grandmothers house, people stopped her to find out what happened. She simply kept walking. In a small Cretan village in the 1950s, Katrina spends much of her time at her grandmothers house. This is where she finds a safe haven, and in the small cha-pel of the property, Katrina reveals her secret to God. The opportunity to marry a young American at the age of sixteen presents itself as the only exit, not realizing the many obstacles awaiting her. Fifty years later, Katrina recounts her life and visits her small town one more time in order to bring a sense of closure to her life. Her parents home is void of life, and she visits their gravesite so that she can finally accept their exit and her emergence into a world really missed and never forgotten.