Insert 8

May 16

Dark chocolate eyes peer just an inch above the wall… Bullet-ridden and pocketed, the wall in recent decay, secrets the child’s body … The child, coughing with the dust, now has asthma… and the child just looks across the street… Doors and windows are gone, everything’s coated in a beige powder… and the child stares…

A trail of dark blood… dried… splatters the wall… A hand reaches lifelessly out from the doorway… The arm covered by a blue burqa, blackened with dirt… no rings, no polished nails… two broken… A trace of dried blood on the wrist… and flies… And the child watches… The dusk hinges on the traces of the moon orb…

The strings of cellos sound from down the street… Apocalytica … Quutamo… faintly… and the child turns it’s head to the sounds… and then quickly back again… to across the street… waiting for the hand to move… Holes and small craters own the street and the occasional pile of sand proves that the desert is gaining… once again…

There’s smoke in the air… and the acrid scent of rubber and shadows are lengthening… The child doesn’t remember the time that the air was smokeless… The child keeps watching… and listening… Up the street a cat steals searching for a morsel. And the constant beat of Quutamo… and the solitude of cello music… And the cat stops… The child catches the quick stop and lowers head behind the wall… And the hum of the cellos in the upper reaches catches the air…

The child breathes, and gasps for clean air… and begins to rise… And now the child’s burnt pool eyes go over the wall’s up-most tier… and the child pauses… The cellos still resonate. The child wonders where everyone is gone. The adults have gone away... except the one laying down in the empty stairwell across the street. The child keeps watching the cat... They know how to find something to eat.... The cat can find something to eat.... When are the adults coming back…?

They took the big ones. The ones that could hold the guns... And the cellos begin to crescendo...Apocalytica… and the cellos are carrying the birds... the ones that have disappeared. And then the child sees the boot in the middle of the street. The shoe laces untied, a large brown boot... and left behind... Could there be another one? The child thinks that a new pair of boots would help clambering on the rock piles and through the destroyed buildings...New boots would help protect its feet... and help it to pick through the bomb strewn cars and other bits and pieces... The child looks down the street for the second boot.

A single cello is now playing and focusing the melody on some distant place. A haunting sound continues... The sun wanes behind the skeleton of the small grocery store that once thrived at the corner down to the left. The child snaps its head, quickly in the direction of the grocery store. There is a movement... a sound above the cello…

An elderly figure appears from behind the wall of the grocery store... slowly... cautiously... The figure pauses... the figure looks to the right, and to the left. The old person motions behind. Another old person, draped in black appears from behind the remnants of the wall. The old people are silent. The cat scampers to the empty stairwell and disappears behind the burqa on the ground. The child keeps its eyes on the old people... The child scrunches down. The child knows it must not move... The child knows it must not make any sound.

The cellos begin to rise. The music is soft in the distance... and begins to slowly step, to progress, to rise... the beat of Quutamo blends with the scrunching of the feet as they move slowly from the corner across the street. The child covers its ears... Four shoes are getting closer... closer. The sun is gone. The darkness covers the child.

The child uncovers its ears and listens. The scrunching has stopped. The cellos have stopped. The Quutamo beat matches the child's heartbeat. A hand reaches down and gently rests on the child's head. The child startles... but has no fear. The child turns to look upward... The Hero smiles... The Hero takes the child's hand and helps the child to rise... The Hero lifts the child up over the decaying wall... The Angel reaches over... The child hugs the Angel...

A single cello note resounds... an explosion destroys the remaining grocery wall. The Hero lifts the child... turns to the left and starts to walk down the street. The Angel follows.