大象传媒

I was 12 - 13 years old. My family was in Variety and Revue. We were left in Scarborough when the war started and we couldn't get another show. We took a large apartment above a high ceilinged garage used for storing a truck, and boxes of vegetables belonging to the store, also at street level. One night, a large oil bomb buried itself under the edge of the building but didn't explode. My brother and I watched from the edge of the crater as the demolition squad calmly defused the bomb. They didn't even bother to move us away. The bomb was hauled off, and we went on with life. That night, we had four small lamb chops, one each, that we'd saved up our ration coupons for. A real and rare treat.
The dinner was ending, and I was ready for the best part, to pick the meat off the bone. As I reached for it, my father looked up. He described everything as happening in slow motion. He said he actually "watched" as the ceiling bulged toward us, and then seem to break open. He yelled "look out", and we threw ourselves onto the floor and rolled to where it met the walls. We'd been trained well. It all happened in a couple of seconds, but seemed to take ages. I felt myself falling, then I felt like an elephant was sitting on me, I couldn't move. Everything was pitch black, Then nothing.
My Father was the first to get free, he'd apparently rolled to the outside wall, and was buried only a few feet under. ARP workers and passersby, had rushed in to help. What happened was the building had been badly shaken by the oil bomb, and had held up for a few hours, shaky and ready to fall. During dinner, the roof came down first, then like an elevator, it came down onto the bedroom floor, the bedroom floor came down on us in the dining room, and we all went on another twenty feet into the garage, with everything on top of us.
Rescuers were digging. My Father had told them there were three of us under the rubble. Suddenly one of the rescuers called for silence. Everybody stood stock still. A small voice could faintly be heard calling over and over, "Where's my bone? Where's my bone." I couldn't move an inch, but in my mind I was reaching all around for that juicy bone of mine. What silly idiot had turned the lights out at such an important time?
I came up safe and sound, just scratched and bruised. My brother was carted off to the hospital, and my mother and father had only minor, healable injuries. We were lucky -- but I never got my bone.

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