An unforgettable incident

Talk about an incident you will never forget.

Certain incidents so impress us that they leave an indelible mark on our memory.
I was once involved in an incident of which I shall always have vivid recollections.
The incident occurred when I visited a village in India together with my parents,
sometime during my holidays last year.
Early in the morning on the day the incident occurred, I was talking with a few of
my new friends in that village. All of a sudden, a boy of my age came rushing
towards us to break the news that violence had broken out in the neighbourhood.
Alarmed at this news, we began to protect ourselves, and before long the
violence spread like wild fire throughout our area.
I was a little confused at first for I had no idea about the cause of the outbreak of
violence there. One of my friends told me that the area had been notorious for
such occurrence owing to rivalry between two parties. Each party tried to destroy
the influence of the other in that area, and the bad blood that existed between
them had caused several deaths and great misery to innocent people for a long
time. Official influence could not be exercised effectively in this area owing to its
remoteness from the centers of authority. The members of the rival parties
therefore enjoyed almost complete freedom of action. The police arrived only
when there was news of violence, and often long after the damage has been
done.
While I was listening to this account of facts and events, the situation suddenly
took an ugly turn. A man who had been standing a short distance away from us
ran into his house most unexpectedly, and within minutes his house was ablaze.
My friends and I then ran towards his house to put out the fire; but we were
stopped by a few burly men who were holding lethal weapons in their hands.
They threatened to kill if we offered any help to anyone. One of them had even
struck me on my head with a stick. We realized instantly that we were no match
for them and that discretion was the better part of valor. We therefore decided to
proceed no further.
Soon the fire from that house began to spread and several houses were burning.
There were frantic cries for help. Men, women, and children were running in all
directions in their desperate attempts to save whatever they could from the fire,
in spite of the interference of the gangsters. A few of the unfortunate ones were
burned to death, including the man who had set fire to his own house. We then
concluded that the man must have been so disgusted with what we had seen for
so long that he had no more desire to live, and this was his way of putting an end
to himself. It was indeed a pathetic sight.
Then, after several hours, the police arrived when more than a quarter of the
village had already been burned to ashes. They asked us several questions to
find out if we had ourselves participated in the violence. As I was foreigner who
would be leaving that village the following day, I had the courage to answer all
their questions and to point out the men who had threatened to kill us. Those
men were then arrested together with other suspects.
Early next morning, my parents and I left the village with no more desire to revisit this place; but my memory of this incident will remain fresh forever.

This is my Intensive English Student's essay.

UNFORGETTABLE INCIDENT
The memory of that night is etched in my mind till now. After all, that was the
most eventful day of my life, which changed the person I was. Everything started
on 18th of November when my aunt sent a car to my mother, a beautiful blue
Audi, the latest in 2004. It was raining heavily when we received the car. My
brother and I were so excited because we planned to coax mom to give the new
car to my brother, as she has already had a car and she refused to give hers to
my brother. The next day we spoke to my father and he agreed to talk to mom
and allowed my brother to have that shining blue car.
My brother, my younger sister and I managed to be the most obedient children in
the world, we did everything that my mom said, we called her twice or thrice per
day to know how she is, we kept pampering her for two and half weeks and
finally, in the beginning of September she decided to give him the car but with a
condition that he must be home before 12pm.
Our life was getting more and more interesting. Each second was fabulous, he
taught me how to drive a car; obviously I was a great L (I call it Loser). Every day
he dropped us at school and fetched us after his class, we were somehow
boasting to our relatives whenever they saw us with the car, I bragged about him
in my class, some of my girlfriends fell in love with him and wanted me to
introduce my brother to them. I thought to myself "How money can bring people
to you?" I was disgusted to see more girls around me, bugging me for a lift. I
didn't need someone to nudge me, to realize that this car has brought friends
close but enemies closer.
On October 10th, my family and I visited my grandmother for two weeks. She
was very happy to see us. She pampered us whenever we visited her. She is very
special to us and we love her so much. Her house in the village is one of the
biggest; it has a green and flourishing garden, where we spent our spare time
with our neighbours children.
One great thing in my grandmother's house is: we all spoke our dialect and for us
it's an opportunity to master it. When she heard that my brother has a car, she
complained to my mother and asked her to hire him a driver instead. The days
ended soon, and we are back to our same routine back in city.
Once back to the city, we immediately went back to bed because of the
exhausting trip. After few weeks my family and I were planning to celebrate
Christmas. We finally ended up celebrating it in our house with the family. I went
with my mom to buy some provisions; my dad and my brother went to buy the
Christmas tree. That night we decorated the tree as well as the house.
On the Christmas day, we had many people, we could barely step through the
crowd, and my mother was busy with her siblings. My brother, sister and I were

glad to meet our cousins but we were more than glad to have them gone,
because we couldn't wait to discover what Santa Clause had brought for us, since
mother refused to let us open the gifts early that morning.
After seven days, we celebrated the New Year by wishing everyone a blissful year
ahead. The following day my brother and I became very close until being his best
friend. He introduced me to his girlfriend and I was glad that he did. The next
day, 25th of January, a close friend of mom came to visit her, and she dined at
home. When she was about to leave, my mom asked my brother to drop her at
the nearby taxi stand. He accepted and asked me to accompany him. I entered
my room but something pushed me to stay, I was indecisive; as I wore my shoes
and took them off, he scolded me because I was taking such a long time, the
same day our country was playing a football match versus another African
country, the roads were deserted, everybody was watching it, finally I told him,
that I am not going. Since my brother left that day around 4pm, he never came
back.
The night was cold and calm; everyone was at home except him. Suddenly my
dad's phone rang, he rushed to my mom's door and whispered. They rushed out,
unfortunately all the car were not working, I asked my father 'What is
happening?' he told me 'Your brother had an accident.' I felt a chill and
everything went black around me. I was fighting back tears and I replied to him
'Hope he didn't get hurt' he said 'He is fine and we are going to find out what had
happened'. Without wasting a minute, I prayed to God for him: to protect him and
make sure that he was fine.
Unmoving, I waited my parents return, they got back around 10pm looking
anxious, you could read the end of the world on their face, then my father came
to me and held me tightly, he told me to be strong, 'Your brother has left us'. My
feeling at that moment was beyond description, I heard screams coming from
outside the gate, I thought to myself that it cannot be true, we spoke only a few
hours ago and now he is gone, mourners were crying everywhere around the
house, our neighbors came, my mom, my poor mom could barely stand, I looked
at her and started crying, 'Oh God! Why did he leave us so young?' it kept on
running in my mind. He was the only son, my only brother, my life was over.
That night was the worst night ever. I was sitting on the table, watching people
crying, crawling and rolling on the floor, I couldn't feel anything, I was like a
frame on the wall. My five senses just stopped working, and everything was
black. I was present but my thoughts were not. I was breathing but my heart was
not controlling the process, only God knows how I felt that night.
The next day, I went to my younger sister as my elder sister was on her way
coming back from Belgium. I cuddled her so tightly and I told her that everything
would be fine. Our house was crowded but for me it was empty because I couldn't
hear the gentle voice of my brother. My brother was the tallest in the family, he
was good looking, kind and admired by everyone. When my elder sister came,
the atmosphere got worse than before. She didn't see him since he was 10 years
old. We were waiting for my sister and aunt to come from Europe to fix the burial
day. His friends, classmates and even people who were unknown by the family
came to pay respect. His girlfriend and parents also came over to extend their
sympathies but she couldn't come to the burial ceremony because she was not
strong enough to attend it.

Many people read out the message that they have written to my brother on that
day, one of his friends said 'The days when I was desperate, you held me up, I
had no money you bought me food, I had nowhere to go you took me to your
house. Thank you, you will always remain as my brother. I love you.'
We prayed for him in the church, the father gave him his last blessing, and buried
him, I felt like half of me was gone, people couldn't believe what had happened
.They were shocked and the same goes to my family and I.
My grandmother was holding my mom on the way back home, everyone could
express their feelings but for mom and dad this sad tragedy was a nightmare,
they would have like it to be a true nightmare, so that they could wake up and
live the normal and complete life we once had.
What is the point of this new car? It came to facilitate our life or to take a part of
us? What if I had stopped him from going? Would God have let him alive? I wish
there was a reverse button to live a life over again.