The lucky ones

Photo/Alison Wright/Corbis

flash fiction friday #49

Papa was dead. Mina and Toussaint were dead. Michel knew because she watched them die — first papa, then sister, then brother. But she was one of the lucky ones.

She dipped the tin into a puddle of water and brought it to her lips. The sun hadn’t yet crested the mountain and the camp had just started to wake up. She learned that if it rained and if she woke early enough, she could make it to the water before everyone else had tramped through, stirring up the silt with tired feet. The smell wasn’t so bad in the crisp air.

They had said the bad men were coming and she knew because off in the distance she could hear rat-ta-tat-tat and Papa said it wasn’t firecrackers and when he said it his breath came different, his eyes grew big and a sour smell wafted from his skin. Mama smelled like that too, but she was busy, busy.

Mama, who was usually so measured and orderly, swept through the ragged, tidy hut like a tornado, whipping rice and maize into a burlap sack, lifting stained bills from a tin on the high high shelf and tucking it hurriedly into the fold in her skirt. Soon they would be eating mud, but better they did not know it. Toussaint stood outside with Papa, alert. Mina rolled a few meager clothes into the sheet they slept on and tossed it over her shoulder and then it was time to run.

They had told Mama and Papa not to bring anything of value, but now, in this place of smells, even the ratty sheet, stained with Mina’s blood, could be stolen and sold. As soon as you finally start to relax, they came, they took your food, your clothes, your life. Mama’s breath never came even anymore.

After Papa was gone, Mama had taken the ring from her finger and tied it on a string and tucked it between the folds of her bosom where sweat turned it copper. She would not sell it; she would not leave it behind. She would fight anyone to the death who spied it and tried to pry it from her heart.

Michel dipped the tin into the puddle, skirting the top where it was cleanest, and emptied it into a plastic half gallon bottle, careful not to lose a drop. Mama would be thirsty when she got back from picking through the camp for food. Laughter landed on her ears like a hot slap and she looked up to see two little ones skipping over puddles. For a moment she thought it was Mina and Toussaint in the Time Before, but these two were too young, and besides, Mina’s blood still tipped the hem of her threadbare shirt.