Writing in the Sands

He sat in a square near a bustling marketplace. The square was empty save for him and the swirling breezes that came with summer. Everyone else, even those who had come here with him, had gone off to the stalls of the marketplace  to haggle for food and drink. The sounds of their business transactions and haggling were much like a din in the distance away from the silence of the square. There were seldom times of silence and he felt the peace of it as he sat on the steps of the block in the center of the square.
He looked across the space and imagining the voices of the slavers selling their human cargo from where he now sat warming himself in the sun. A breeze began swirling on one side of the square. Tiny dervish swirls of sand lifted from the stones in small mad dances as the breeze swept around him. He looked down at where the wind had disturbed the sands at his feet. He smiled down at the sandals that a man had given him just a few days back before wishing him well as they talked of walking to this town. A pair of sandals, not his own, came into view and stopped in front of him. The sandals were old and well worn, the feet in them looked like they too hand walked many miles having thick calluses and chipped toe nails.
He glanced up at the man who stood before him and nodded at him. The man who was as worn as his sandals grunted, then walked around him to sit down on the steps next to him. The man was dressed in the robes of the land though they were thread bare and the colors sun bleached out of them until all that remained was a soft whiteness that permeated all of the cloth. The man himself was darker than he and swarthy, his beard thicker with streaks of gray midst the darker ones. His eyes sparkled with a gentle humor that seemed to know more than he would be sharing.
The two of them sat in companionable silence for a time. The other man looked around the square and nodded. He then turned to check the street that led into the space as if expecting to see someone come down it.

"Do you think they will come?" He asked the silence.

"Aye, they will come soon." The other man answered as if he were the one who had been asked. "They will bring the woman as well."
He smiled, knowing what was coming, then he bent down and pushed his finger in the sand at his feet. The other man sat for a while and then looked down at what he was doing but did not interrupt. After a time, he stopped the writing in the sand and sat back. Both of them considered his work. The other man shook his head and chuckled. They continued to look at it even as the wind swept around them blowing away his work on the shifting grains.
"It was a good law." the man said finally.
"It was perfect until they decided that it needed something more." He said wiping his hands.
"Something more." The other harrumphed. "More than  what exactly?"
"They would say the law needs a certain definition so there would be no doubt."
"It was not what the Father told me in the end."
"It was not enough for them to take Him at His word." He said as the last grains blew away and the wisdom in the sands was no more.

"How soon they would alter the law, so much that they could soon forget it." The other man said, placing each of his gnarled hands on each knee.
"It did not take them long at all to forget the good things, the Father had done for them, why not His laws then."

"They could have let the Law stand. No, they should have let it be." The other man spread his hands wide and slapped his knees. "Besides, your law will be better, surely they cannot get that wrong."

He only smiled sadly at the other man until he nodded as well and shrugged.

"They cannot help themselves."
"Yes." He said and bent back to write in the sand at his feet again.
The other man looked down at his activity.

"So few then?"
"I cannot save them all." he said without looking up. "Many will hear and not have it. Some will refuse to have it even, Others will hear it and immediately want to alter it to suite- no to justify their own ends. Only a few will take the Father at His word."

"As it was in the beginning." The other man said sitting up straight and looking up the street once again, then added "So it will be now and in the end."

"You can say what you like but the Father is always consistent." He said looking down at his latest handiwork.

"Well I must be off then." The other said as he stood.

He smiled and looked up at the man.
"You'll not stay for this?"

"No, my friend. I have watched them do this one too many times for me to want to watch them do it all again."
"I understand."
"The irony of it all strikes deep, how soon they can forget one commandment- even unto the next one."
"Yes. it is amazing that it can happen so quick with them."
They nodded at each other, sharing the knowing smile.

The other man turned and began to walk away, then he stopped and turned back to him.
"Should I tell the Father anything?"

"Yes." He said and looked up the street seeing the crowd approaching pulling the unfortunate woman along with them. They were being none to gentle with her, almost driving her like livestock would be driven. A few found something of interest on the ground and stooped to pick it up.

"Tell Him to leave a light on for me."

The other man nodded, then left him alone in the square and the sand.

lost children

She stood on top of the craggy cleft for a long time screaming her lungs dry, calling her sister’s name over and over again until her voice broke in lamentable despair.


Where had the time gone since she had left the windswept crags of her family home? 
three years had passed since they had taken her sister from her mother's arms. Her mother had screamed at them that she would rather be dead then let them  take her child away. They, the men in the long grey coats had shoved my mother to her knees while the one who held my sister in his arms had spat on our mother. 
My father had not resisted them taking my sister as they had broken him a long time ago when they had taken Josef. I can still her the thuds of their batons on my father's body as they laughed at him for his defiance. My father has not spoken since my mother and I drug him back into our container and wrapped his broken limbs in the swaddling in which it would take months before he could stand again.


She looked down at the digital recording device in her hands. She had walked from where the container town had been placed above the mud pit where everyone worked becuase they had told them to work there. No one had come after her, she was not the first child to walk out into the wastes, she would not be the last. It was a good thing that they allowed procreation among the people, otherwise the children would run out between the outcasting and the culling. Josef and now Mirand had been taking in the cullings while she had apparently walked out into the wastes thus outcasting herself to the elements and from  the people.


She had seen no one. She had looked for days, then weeks, then months, now it was years. Her only track of time she had was the recorder she kept with her. She had snatched it from the back of the container where her family had lived ever since the town had been dropped there by the others. No one she knew could say where they had come from though some swore that it was from a different pit. Those fools also swore that things had been better at the last pit.


She gazed down at her hands and knew that she had been right to leave. Her hands had finally healed, the callouses  had finally healed. Her hands were whole. She had learned- thanks to other peoples recordings how to forage and eat. How to collect things to wear, where the purified water ran and where the radioactive pools were likely to be. She had learned other things along the way. Things like where to hide from the predators unamable and horrifying. What to listen for before the wind storms swept in the sand and grit that drowned out everything in their beckoning howls.


She had found only a few others from the people out here. Some were like her, fast, furtive and hard to catch. The others were easy to catch, dominate and possess- this repulsed her more since they were willing to do anything to live another day. The rest had been in some stage of dying from exposure or bad water or rotted food. She had felt pity for them since their was no saving them and they had passed on to another place in the nights she had remained with those she had found. 
Lately there had only been skeletons and the remains of skeletons.


She could not find Miirand- what had she expected though? to walk down into some valley and find her sister waiting for her?
There were still times when she felt like screaming like she had that first night when they had taken her twin from her.