Sharing What's Left
残りを分け合う
The next morning, pale light entered the hall through the dusty windows.
People were hungry, and the children had already begun to cry for food.
Jin helped the others count everything that the hall still contained.
They found some rice, a few bottles of water, and several cans of soup.
It was clear that the would last only three or four days.
"We have almost run out of clean water," Yuki said with a face.
The town's shops had run out of bread and milk on the very first night.
Mori argued that the strongest workers should receive the largest of food.
If we shared everything , he said, no one would have enough energy.
But Keiko, the old nurse, shook her head and disagreed with him firmly.
"If we thought only of ourselves, we would lose our ," she replied.
She believed that the children and the sick should be fed before anyone else.
Jin listened to both sides and felt the of the difficult choice.
He suggested that they measure each carefully and write it in a notebook.
If everyone followed the same simple rule, no one could of .
Slowly, the group agreed to the food according to real need.
The strongest would carry water, and the weak would rest and .
Jin divided the rice into small equal cups, one for each person present.
Yuki gave part of her own quietly to her hungry little son.
Keiko smiled and said that kindness would keep them alive longer than food.
Yet everyone knew that their had already begun to disappear fast.
If the rescue never came, even careful sharing would not save them all.
Jin looked at the last bottles of water standing on the wooden table.
He wondered how many more mornings they could survive on so little.