Scattered
by feldman
The granary was hollow.
The flood waters were thick with the soil washing away.
"And your father, is he recovering from his illness?" The older woman pours chasj. The younger wipes her face with her sleeve.
"He was always so strong. It's frightening to see him helpless, unwilling to even try. He lives in the past and he waits for death."
His sons were solid, dark as rich earth and unaware of the long season of starvation that had begun. The recruiter was leaving at daybreak.
"He still cannot speak properly." He hears his wife in the younger woman's tears. "And he often calls me by my mother's name."
Bracelets rattle as the matron motions a ward with her hand. "I am sure he doesn't mean to name the dead."
He let the wind pull his sons from him, seeds for another field. The universe granted them a daughter in their place, with the face of the woman who's heart he broke when he told her that her sons would be soldiers.
"I never realized how old
my father was already, when I was born."