Two Eyes Cenote Leaf-nosed

Warm tears spill over her cheeks and down her muzzle, coating the length of her neck in a wettened sheen. She sucks a quick breath in and stifles the following sob. Mourning is a lapse of strength, a vulnerability she would trust with no one. And so the half-coy forces open her silken gaze and aims it at the hemet, summoning all the steel she can.

“What is wrong with me?” Eset asks, defeated, but adopting the woman’s same pragmatism. She blinks away an impossible dream of her baby playing alongside Toula’s children and struggles with another breath.

Her entire body went limp. No ire was left to contest the healer’s mockery of the fellahin. The forgotten chwezi sang through her mind, their voices mournful.