She stood in her doorway. The morning was hot, the sky clear and unforgiving. There was a tiny caterpillar busying itself across the mat in front of her feet. She lifted one foot and hovered it over the creature, considering. It appeared again in her line of sight, from under the shadow of her foot, and undulated off the edge of the worn mat. She put her foot down, and watched the tiny body move away.
There was nothing else moving that she could see. She stepped out from the doorway, placed a foot on the already burning earth, walked out into its fullness, its emptiness. There seemed to be no sound, no sign of life, except herself, and the caterpillar.
And then she saw a figure, in the distance. She wondered how long he would take to walk to the house.
She turned around and looked the other way. There was a patch of spindly trees she often visited, and it took only a short while to get to them. There was nowhere amongst them to hide, but it would give her something to do, and time to think, before the figure arrived. It would put more distance between them.
She went back into the house, wrapped a scarf around her head, and then left, shutting the door behind her.
Her feet were stinging against the soil, but she tried to ignore it. The heat clothed her skin. She moved as quietly as she could, stayed as calm as she could. She thought of gliding across the ground. She wished she had shoes.
She forced herself not to look behind her. She wanted to forget about the figure, even if only for small moments.
When she reached the trees, she touched each one. It had been a week or so since she had been to them, and she saw that there was a dead bird at the base of the tallest one. It was a crow, the only bird she saw now. But even they were dying. She heard them at night sometimes, their harsh voices punching through the dark. The days were silent.
She stood up and looked towards the distance. The figure had reached almost to her house, she saw, so she decided then to walk on.
She looked once more up into the trees, then left their meagre shelter.
She knew there was a village somewhere nearby. Within a day’s walk. She had been there once, two years ago, with her mother. It was after her father disappeared. She never found out where he had gone, and her mother never spoke of him again.
When her mother left the house ten days ago, she had a feeling in her heart that she would not return, that something would happen to her. She had gone to fetch water, as she did every morning, but this time, the girl knew that her mother was going into danger. When she said to her that she was afraid, her mother smiled, and told her that life has to go on in its rhythm.
-You cannot let the fear of death rule your life.
And she waved and walked off with her large tub under her arm, her scarf around her head, her long thin legs swathed in a white skirt.
When the day withered in the sky, and her mother had not returned, the girl walked out of their home and set off to find her. It was two hours to get to the well, and she ran part of the way. She tripped and fell several times, not noticing the cuts and grazes. When she reached the well, it was a lonely place. The tub was there, empty, but no mother.
She waited until the darkness was full, then picked up the tub and started her walk back home. It was heavy and she had to stop every now and again. But she was used to hard work, and the night did not frighten her. It was not the night that frightened her.
From then on, she made the journey to the well herself, and saw no one. She wondered if she might disappear one day, like her mother, but the days went by, and nothing happened. She pressed her fear into the bricks of her house, placing her hands against the cooling slabs and closing her eyes.
And now the figure was still behind her, walking as she walked, not in a hurry to catch up with her. She wondered what would happen if she just stopped, sat down and waited for him to meet her. She did stop, and look, but decided that she would keep walking.
The warm air carried an odour that she recognised. It was like that of their old cow when she lay, dead, outside their door, for three days. She had been killed by someone, they never found out who, and they were too frightened to go out to try to drag her away.
As she approached the village, this odour became stronger and stronger. She stopped, not knowing what to do. It seemed to be a silent place, until she recognised the low humming.
She crept on. The houses were simple, like her own. She stopped again and looked. There were people on the ground in front of her, children like her, women and men. She saw animals too, strewn about, hacked and clotted. There were flies. She remembered how they buzzed so strongly around their old cow. She stood and looked further into the village. She could see there were more people, lying on the ground, and that their houses were smoking, were burned.
She turned and walked back a little way. Stopped, and turned to face the village again. She saw a baby, tiny in his stillness, arm outstretched to the man next to him. She turned and looked for the figure who had been following her. She could not see him.
She turned her head one way then the other. Had her mother been here? Was she with these people? The girl looked, then turned away, looked, turned away.
She finally turned right around, and looked again for the man. She still could not see him. She started to walk back in his direction, to see if she was mistaken, but he was nowhere in sight. She tried to swallow but her mouth was dry.
She faced the village again. She walked towards the edge of it, along behind the houses, through the silence, heavy as rock. There were more people, lying in the earth.
And then, there was a tiny sound, a pebble. She stood listening, so she could walk towards it.
She stepped carefully in the direction she thought it might have come from, listening and looking as much as she could bear. There it was, the tiny sound. She thought it was coming from the nearest house. She pointed her feet through the doorway. It was dark, the covered windows barring the heat. She put her hand into the cooler air, then inched forward.
-Hello?
Her voice was a squeak, and she had to cough. There was no answer. She thrust herself into the middle of the single room in a rush, swirling around, eyes wide in the dimness.
She could see a single pot upturned on the floor, with some clothing bunched up beside it. She watched it for a while, then moved slowly towards it. When nothing happened, she grew brave enough to squat beside it. She put out her hand to touch the cloth. As she pressed her fingers into it there was a feeble cry, and all at once she clutched it in her hands and pulled the cloth off.
The tiny baby mewed again with the movement. The girl looked and looked and looked. She put her fingers on her skin, and around her head. She grasped the small hand that fumbled at her, and then the feet with their nut-like toes.
She looked around the hut, but there seemed to be nothing there except this child, the cloth, the cooking pot. She took the plain piece of fabric, and placed it over the baby, then picked her up, wrapping her carefully.
Outside, there was only the smell, the heat and the buzzing quiet.
She could not see the man, her follower. She did not care about him anymore. If he came, he came. He seemed so unimportant now, amongst all these people.
The girl walked away from that village. She kept walking with the tiny baby, determined not to look behind her, but to keep her hands firmly around the beating heart of her hope.
© Sue Bond 2006
