This was originally
written for Flash Friday on 30 May 2014.
Cup
of Tears
Outside the city walls red battlefields
baked in the sun. Elah poured her tears into the palace garden’s dry fountain. “For
my brothers,” she said.
Beside the fountain lay the broken statue
of a woman – a reminder of a story almost forgotten. ‘There would only be freedom from the war when enough tears have been
shed.’ Elah’s tears stained the grey stone. Women in mourning veils crowded
behind her, cup in hand. They shuffled forward, each tipping their cup into the
fountain. Tears blended, slowly filling the bowl.
“For my father.”
“For my husband.”
“For my son.”
But it was not enough.
Elah stood by the fountain for seven days and
cried under a burning sky until she had no strength left. For fathers,
brothers, sons, her people, her enemy.
“Is this enough?” she whispered.
Her last tear filled the fountain and
spilled over the edge. The sound of battle stopped as darkness took her.
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