Life in The Ashes

Bello stands with a crowd of humans. They surround an open grave dug in the ground. A few people lower a coffin into it. Songs are sung, cries ring out, sighs are heard, moods are heavy. Bello quietly watches the coffin hit the base of the hole. It feels as though it had hit the walls of his heart instead.

A cry once more enters his mind. He turns his head. There's a woman crying, wailing, weeping. A few hold her as her body moves on its own, overcome by grief.

Jadim's widow.

Bello's eyes linger in her form for a while. Then he turns his eyes back to the grave. Packets of sand are thrown upon the coffin with spades. Step by step, grain by grain, the hole fills up. Another life lost to the ambitions of a few.

*****

Thunder rumbles in the skies above. The clouds gather, ready to release. Bello walks away from the ceremony in the company of his family. The walk is quiet. The road home feels long. They get to a certain point and a palm branch, charred, lies across the road. Bello gently uses his leg to push it aside, clearing the way for his child to walk past it. As he does so, the charred palm branch reveals something; a fresh, green, palm leaf, growing from the ground, seemingly separated from the cruelty of the area, holy. Bello gets stuck on it for a while, his thoughts unsure. His wife notices it.

“Honey?”

Her call breaks his thoughts, and he looks up. Seeing her look, he smiles to let her know he's okay, then he moves on, joining his family as they return home.