Asif (the describer)

Sickly leather: the scent of smouldering flesh was being carried westward on the evening wind. "It's safe to go out now" he told himself, but the boy's crumpled spine felt too sore to move. The sun set its fiery mass over the remains of the empty village, somewhat apologetic for a day of scorching a land that had nothing left to be scorched.

Four months before and the petroleum company had been laying pipes in the region. Their giant yellow machines had made mile-long incisions in the sand. They were implanting arteries under the earth's skin to pump new life back into ageing economies.

Asif was curled up in one of the grey pipes. Salt stains on his sallow skin and that distant acrid stench were all that was left of the day's events. He wanted to get out. He crawled forward on his hands and knees but the pain forced him down onto his stomach, chin in the dust, eyes on the approaching night. "It looks different from down here" he thought, "difference is good" he murmured.



[to be continued]