Sand

Barren. It is as though the ground has turned to dust. Golden and powdery, it sifts through his fingers as he kneels there on the ground, his tears dried up in the heat, eyes void of expression. He cannot summon the strength to rise. He has said his brothers’ names so many times, calling through a whirlwind of sand and helpless, wild screams. He does not know where they come from or who is calling for help. Perhaps no one. Perhaps it is merely the wind howling around him. Sometimes he thinks it is a child wailing, or others the familiar voices of old friends, long dead; but it cannot be them, he tells himself, clenching his fists and biting his dry lips. He yells again with all the force he can muster, planting his staff into the soft ground and using it to get to his feet again, pulling a cloth over his face as a wind begins to blow up, weakly at first, but growing in strength by the moment.

Barren.

Trudging slowly and painfully, step by step, he makes his way along the dunes where once his home lay lush and full of eager, growing life, fed by the lakes of Torrens. He knows that buried beneath the dry sand lie bodies and pillaged huts, skeletons of old fishing boats and the little children who once played on the shores and waded in crystal water. With each step he feels greater agony in his heart, weighing him down until he can barely move, barely think. His mind is tired of trying to understand. His body is exhausted from walking. His heart is broken with loneliness. Pictures flick through his head, nearly forgotten memories of women washing their clothes at the water’s edge, carrying their babies in slings across their breasts, humming songs in the evening or sharing stories in the morning. Of boys kicking a ball in the midst of the village, men ploughing with the perspiration of work on their brows, elderly men and women sitting and looking out at the water that had once inspired their youth and carried them on its waves in their little wooden boats.

And a girl.

One girl. She had poppies carried in from the fields that lay behind the sea, one pushed behind her ear, others gathered in her apron. A blue apron. Why would he remember that, he wonders, his eyes closing against the wind. Just an ordinary girl. Oh, but she was beautiful. He knows that. He seems to hear her laugh ringing in his ears and feel her hand slip into his, her golden head leaning on his shoulder. She seems to call his name from afar and then whisper it in his ear, and though he tries to answer, his throat is too dry. He is tired, so tired. He does not feel himself stumble and fall, does not hear the wind whipping about his head. The sand stings his face but he does not notice. He hears her laugh one more time.

And then he sleeps.