The grasses whisper of vengeance. Across the plain, their home stands on the edges of the village taken from them. Built on stilts above the wind burned steppes, the circle houses of blue and white canvas have their ladders let down, even as the moon blesses the night with her silver. The interlopers don’t know to draw them up. Or else believe that all the people that they exiled are dead or long scattered.
But not these two. He sits with the man-high grasses wheeling in the wind around him. His father stands watching the unmoving village. They do not even set watchmen. The father crouches, and draws an axe whose edge flashes in the moonlight.
‘Let’s go home,’ he says to his son.
Paddy Dobson
28th October 2021