Reaction Paper

We were supposed to write a reaction paper for my Mythology class. The subject was Katrina. We could write it using any style we wanted. I don't know why I chose this one.

She sighs in relief because the big storm everyone worried about is going away from where she lives. But why is everyone still so upset? She doesn't understand until Mommy turns on the T.V. and they watch the bodies floating down the streets.
So she is afraid again. She knows what this is. This is death; this is pain. She felt this tension before, years ago, when she thought Daddy was caught in those pretty buildings when they burned and crashed to the ground. Really he was in Virginia and had to take a week to drive home because they wouldn't let anybody fly. She didn't mind so much because she just wanted him home safe. But when she sat with her mommy and older brother and watched all those people jump from a million stories up because it was better than burning Mommy said, she couldn't comprehend the tension in the air.
It wasn't until she succumbed to her own inate morbid curiosity a little while later that she began to understand. She looked it up online. "Death," enter. Articles, pictures, websites devoted to graphics. "Murder," enter. Blood, stories. She felt sick but she couldn't look away. Car accidents, 9/11, World War II, Suicides, Homocides. It all hit home when that video cropped up, the one that still hurts her to think about. She only watched a few seconds of it, but they're burned into her mind. She didn't think the title was true. There couldn't be a video of a real murder online. So it hit home when she saw the knife pierce that boy's throat. That brutal gurgle he emitted suddenly echoed in her mind as she sat with her mommy once again watching the bodies from this big storm float down the gutters, line the sopping streets.
And she learns that these people had an opportunity that the other people never did. They could've moved away. They could've left before the big storm came to where they lived instead of where she lives. But that's where she gets confused again. This thing called money that she's hearing about more and more. This thing called the government that she thought she understood when they taught her about it in school. This thing called racism. This thing called disaster relief. This thing called war.
So she knows this is death and this is pain, but it is all so overwhelming and confusing that, as she sits wishing she could help those people get off their roofs and not drown in the swirling waters, she feels as helpless as a child.