Daily Times

It was a desert that seemed like a hell

The air was filled with a pungent smell

Small pebbles spread on the ground

I was alone, no one around

Tired and thirsty I sat on the ground

Gave a glance to the mounds,

As I put my palm on the dust

There was something on the crust

A small rotten milk-tooth I found

Far away I saw a walking Hope

Nearer it came, abused me with the words

‘This place is cursed, now u r too’

Dying with thirst I asked for water

He pointed in the north and murmur

‘Cursed for the cursed’

‘Cursed for the cursed’

Stranger was he but more strange what he tell,

I followed his directions and saw a well.

Horror it was, not a well

A gory sight, not a bless

Waters are white but here they were red

Filthy with chopped hands and head

I drank my thirst or it dried itself

Close my eyes and comforted myself

There I saw a crow with a seed in its beak

Followed by another with an empty mouth

He attacked the first and both quarrelled

They scratch and tore each other’s feather

To stop this fight I threw a stone

They stare at me (the giant for them) and flew away.

Tired and thirsty the giant took a nap

Few hours later the clouds came

It was unusual but a beautiful sight

I soaked myself in the blessed rain

The rain turned the seed into poppy;

The red and red and red poppy

In the barren land where there was no green

It was the first life that shoots

I saw a mob coming towards me

Including the man who cursed me

I was frightened and squeezed my arms

But it was the poppy that was their host.

I asked an armless boy that why they came?

He moved his dry, cracked lips and said

‘It was a drone that was employed

It was my school that was destroyed’

The writer can be reached at nabafatima.1996@yahoo.com

Published in Daily Times, August 17^th 2017.