Patrick

“That was a children’s dream of the heavenly meadow, the vision of repose that comes to a tired body in sleep, she though, but I have seen it when I did not know it was a dream.”

The man standing in the shade of the rubber trees with coins of sunshine dancing on his body, holding her daughter in his arms, glanced up and caught Ammu’s gaze. Centuries telescoped into one evanescent moment. History was wrong-footed, caught off guard. Sloughed off like an old snakeskin. Its marks, its scars, its wounds from old wars and the walking-backwards days all fell away. In its absence it left an aura, a palpable shimmering that was as plain to see as the water in the river or the sun in the sky. As plain to feel as the heat on a hot day, or the tug of a fish on a taut line. So obvious that no one noticed.

“I’d be respected if I couldn’t be loved.”

‪“it feels like cutting the whole world—