The gunshot thundered from across the lake at daybreak. A sleepy sun rose and began to awaken all those that sang among the crystal dew- she did not sing with the birds but she was awake all the same. It was the girl this time, Old Sarah knew it would be the last of the rebels to be killed like this. They wanted to make a point first. They would hang the rest in the capital for the nation to see.The old woman sighed as her bones creaked into movement like dry branches in the wind, she had lived too long. Instead she yearned for a final rest while the youth were slain. She yearned for the clouds to gather and wash the dried blood off the girl's body. She cursed the sun for shining on a day as wretched as this.
The widows lived simply in the house by the lake. It belonged to Old Sarah who took them in if they had nowhere to go, if they had no kind relation to bear their sorrows with them. She had been a widow for more years than some had been alive. It kept them safe when the war began, the outsiders were superstitious - no harm fell on them for fear of divine retribution.
There was no time for tears in this life, Old Sarah believed this through sunshine and through rain. But she shed them every time the gunshots boomed. As the day began the house filled with the sound of dishes clinking and bristles sweeping away the dust that settled at night. It was like this every morning, all the widows cleaning and humming as they worked. On this morning there were no songs on their lips and no words that expressed their wounded hearts.
The youngest one, wept while she peeled potatoes, her swollen belly pulled the cotton taut and caught the teardrops that fell. Her husband was among the first to be executed after the rebels were captured. So she came to the whitewashed house with the creaking doors, mourning as her fatherless child that grew month after month. Blameless child who was due to enter an unforgiving world soon. She had known the dead girl well. Everyone knew the girl. She had planned on studying teaching in the city nearby. Destined to be the pride of their valley one day. But that dream was no more.
The girl had been too young to die.
The blush of womanhood was drained from her cheeks when she joined the rebels. The soft lines of her frame hidden in fatigues. A wedding veil for a helmet. Necklaces for the noose. The girl swapped all of those for the colours of freedom. Now she would return to the soil with hardened limbs and a face that would never see the wrinkles of age settle upon it. Old Sarah knew that this would be the turning point. The last drop that caused the floodgates to break open and unleash a flood. She knew it would happen when the rains came again. Or at least, she hoped that it would.
It was midday when the mourners walked past, dragging their feet on the parched ground while singing sober hymns of a better life beyond the grave. Dust rose filled the air with a reddish haze that settled on their clothes and exhausted faces.They were tired of the war and of the outsiders who ruled the countryside. The girl's death would stir the hearts of men, perhaps. Perhaps they would cast out the foreigners who did this, who claimed to rule this valley.Many holy buildings that became defiled by these men were symbols of how far the oppression had come. The weekly prayers took place by the lake now, under the willow trees where God could see them worship beneath His shelters. But this did not alter their circumstance, they would need more than miracles.
It had been ten years of this existence: war and men of war who took, from the young women, what had been saved for the marriage bed. A decade of widows and widow makers. This is what war was in this place.Fields of green became dry battlefields watered with blood.The rebels were young and full of courage alas their rebellion did not last for more than a year before they were captured and sentenced to death. Old Sarah waited for the rain. She waited for war to end. It needed to end before she returned to the soil.
Night began to creep into the valley when the waters broke. Old Sarah chuckled as she looked up to the heavens, she had prayed for a new chapter of their lives that washed away the sadness of their past. But she did not expect this kind of flood to come so soon. Old Sarah hobbled to the room where the sounds of labour could be heard and the cries of an already fatherless child pierced the cool night air.
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