The Farm

The sun rose gradually, quietly stealing its position in the morning sky before anyone noticed it was there at all. Thin, blinding rays of winter light stretched across the fields, melting the veiled frost that had formed on the blades of grass and bark of the trees, leaving the ground fresh and glistening as a multitude of bugs and insects scrambled, unseen, beneath the expanse of green. The sky had turned a pale blue, slowly transfiguring from the inky pool it had been overnight, and was occasionally dotted with the swift, flitting figures of bramblings which shifted from tree to tree in search of a hearty breakfast to start their day.

Their short, sharp chirps, which seemed to compliment their aerial manoeuvres, were accompanied by a chorus of varying squawks and whistles from the dense, bordering woods and the clanging of the bells that accompanied the cows on their daily journey from barn to pasture.

She, of course, had been awake long before any of this. The morning routine of the sun and bird and cow held no mystique to her well-trained eye or ear. Who was it that had opened the barn door and roused the matriarch? Who had filled the troughs with hay and water under cover of the inky darkness? Who had ensured the gate to the field, damp and rotten from the autumn months, had been repaired and refitted the day before? Such was the routine - yearly, monthly, weekly, daily. These were but a few of the jobs on the agenda for the day, and a pre-dawn commencement was necessary if it was all to be done. And it was all to be done.

She had lived her entire life there - never venturing further than the nearest city for the occasional market-day or unenthusiastic appointment at the bank. The city had never interested her: she was out of place there, amongst the loud conversations and pressed shirts. The grey buildings reached too high around her, blocking out the sky and sunlight and framing them in partitioned blocks, and the mass of bodies moving down the street felt like the current of a river, washing her in a direction she did not wish to go. She craved the serenity and simplicity of mornings like this, and the comfort of her schedule. The fields she understood; the birdsong and aroma of valley mists; the promise of the fireplace in the evening after an arduous day. Her short, thick legs, leathery hands and weathered face matched this place - beaten but resilient, just beginning to show signs of disrepair, albeit with plenty of fight left within.

After pulling her woolen hat off, revealing a tangled crop of black hair, she wiped the sweat from her forehead. The sun was hotter than she had anticipated; she began to regret bringing the hat in the first place. That said, she knew an overly-warm head was preferable to the tips of her ears freezing once the bitter wind picked up on the tor’s peak. From there, she would be able to see the sheep in the next field over and make sure none had managed to amble hrough a gap in the fence or, god forbid, a broken section of wall. Money was tight - everywhere - and the last thing she needed was more expenditure on repairs after the old gate had finally surrendered to the years of rot it had suffered for so long.

At the peak, her prayers were answered - all sheep present and accounted for, and no damage as far as she could see. The autumn had been calm, with no particularly tempestuous weather aside from the odd day-long downpour. One young cow had got itself stuck in a mud-puddle, but was easily liberated with the tractor and a length of rope. She looked down on both herds now, dotting the verdant carpets below her, and considered her next undertaking.

It came just as she turned to head down towards the farmhouse - the rumble of machinery in the distance. It seemed to reverberate throughout the trees below her like the bellow of some great bear, warning any would-be competitors away from its territory, followed by a pneumatic whine that pinched the air around her ears. She looked off to the left as if she half-expected to see some grizzly, mechanical brute crashing its way through the forest towards her, but she saw nothing save a small flock of indeterminable birds that had taken leave of their roosting spot following the sudden eruption of noise. Whatever it was, if it was anything at all, was not something to concern her. At least, she thought, not at this present moment. She turned again to go.

The first shot caused her to duck. It cracked out across the fields like a whip, finding a spot to echo in every rock-face and hollow tree. The second sent her to her knees, splashing down into the wet ground. She called out, just in case whoever was shooting had mistaken her for a deer on top of the ridge. Her heart pounded as she searched for an explanation, but none came. A third. A fourth. Then the shouting began.

Admittedly, shouting was inaccurate: it implied words accompanied the noise as a means to an end, whereas this was more primal, less concerned with imparting an order or instruction. This was purely noise, meant for nothing other than to convey anger… or hatred… or mania... possibly all three at once. Still shaken from what she thought had been a misguided attempt on her life, she crawled, trembling, to the edge of the scar and peered over to see what had disrupted the peace of the early morning. She could feel the cold moisture of the ground seeping through her clothes and onto her skin, but there was no chance of her standing or kneeling if there were to more bullets  fired in her direction.

The cries grew louder as she scanned the fields for any sign of their source, and she began to distinguish more and more variations within her scope of hearing. They were awful sounds - sounds which seemed to call upon death and promise suffering to any who heard them. They chilled her to the bone. As to where they were coming from, however, she had no idea. They seemed to encroach from all around - creeping up behind her and climbing the cliff-face below until they reached her isolated hiding spot. Try as she might, she could see nothing other than the same, pastoral landscape that had existed there long before she was born. That was, however, until she saw the first man break from the trees.

He ran like a man possessed across the uneven ground, heavy with grass and mud, resplendent in an all-white uniform that became flecked with brown spots on his frantic venture. It consisted of a long-sleeved jacket, buttons open, revealing a pale red tunic underneath that was tucked into trousers of the same colour as the jacket. He wore thick, dark boots that came up to his shin above the trousers and didn’t appear to assist him in his attempt to cross the field at pace. On his head sat a flat, red cap emblazoned with a gold pin that glinted in the sun. It was a fine uniform, she thought, though she was at a loss to place any purpose to it. He was young. She could see that. The way he ran, the gracelessness of it all, the clumsy footfall that sent him stumbling from one way to the other. He looked panicked and lost, like a child searching for its mother in a crowd. Perhaps this youthful innocence was the reason she gasped when the bullet hit him. His slight frame was thrown forward and slid for a second or two along the slick grass. Her eyes widened as she watched him twitch and writhe, the red of his tunic becoming ever more visible through his pristine jacket.

It really had been a fine uniform.

Part II

From the bordering trees, she saw the assumed culprit emerge, slowly, his rifle affixed to his shoulder, still prepared to fire. Unlike the first man, this one blended into the trees - his dark green pullover and heavy black trousers offering an effective disguise against the shadowy woods. It was only when he had moved into the sunlight that she had noticed him.

Scanning the surroundings, he stopped for a moment, noted the body of the boy that lay ahead of him, and lowered the gun. With only a slight motion, he called forward five more identical hunters who appeared slowly beside him, guns trained in various directions. She sank to the ground; still managing to keep them in her sight, wondering if she could make it back to the house without meeting the same fate as the prostrate youngster below her. She thought better of it.

The six men in green made their way over the field, following the same path the young man in white had taken. Their rifles were pointed down, but kept carefully within their grip, the two bringing up the rear walking backwards to keep an eye out for anyone following. On reaching the body, the apparent commander of the group took the butt of his gun and rutted it into the back of the boy, as if to check if he was somehow feigning the dense pool of blood that had formed across his back. There was no reaction. The commander knelt down and rummaged through the young man’s jacket. Whatever it was he found, he placed in the pocket of his baggy, dark trousers, and motioned to the rest of his team with an arch of his neck.

As they retreated from the reddening white spot, she noticed they were heading towards the farm house. Clearly, the commander had noticed it while scanning the fields and was now moving his men there to investigate - most likely for more men dressed in white. A panicked cramp ran through her stomach. When they found the house empty, but demonstrating signs of life - the still-warm kettle on the hob, the washing hanging from the clothes-horse in the kitchen, the half-finished slice of bread she had chewed, absent-mindedly, that morning - what action would they take? Was there a chance they would leave her stone unturned and move on to their next point of call? Something about their carriage and purposeful strides told her any optimism was misplaced.

Upon reaching the house, the commander took three of the men with him to the side door that led to the kitchen - the same one she had left by that morning before the sun had risen. It was a thick, oak door, split in the middle on a separate hinge that could be fixed together. She would often stand there in the late afternoon, watching the sun lower beyond the peak, listening to the hubbub of the cows as they jostled for the best spot at the hay-bale, her tea gently steaming in the chilly air and last few rays of orange sun. Now she watched, from the rise, as the commander thudded his closed fist against the door and shouted something inaudible from her position. He paused, looking to his assistants for some unspoken acknowledgement. He thudded once more. Then paused. Another glance. He reached for the handle.

On his turn of the handle, her breathing became shorter and sharper. He pulled the door outwards, raising his gun as if to meet the team of white jackets that he believed were waiting inside; his assistants followed suit. One by one, the green jumpers tracked their mud-encased boots into her kitchen, guns raised, ready for whatever awaited them - namely the still-warm kettle and half-eaten bread slice. Once all six had entered, after confirming an absence of any threat other than moderately hot water, the door swung closed behind them. The house, ostensibly, was theirs.

She sat and waited.

The midday sun was high in the sky when the door clicked open. One of the green jumpers was leaving. He held his gun loosely at his side by the wooden grip, a cigarette clearly visible between his lips. He rested his rifle against the frame of the door and lighted his cigarette with arrogant ease, releasing a thin cloud of white smoke in his wake He walked away from the house, one hand in his pocket. He kicked open the flimsy outer-gate and wandered towards the open field. From her outlook, she decided this sullen adolescent couldn’t have been any older than the clumsy scout that still lay beneath her. He lacked the ungainly build of the dead boy, but it was clear to see the disenchantment of youth in his walk, and the indifference in his cigarette smoke. He discarded the smouldering roll with a deft flick once he reached the body. The blood had ceased to flow; instead it had congealed into a cold, semi-solidified gel across the rough material of the jacket, and stained a few patches of surrounding grass. With little hesitation other than to check his immediate locality, the boy reached for his belt and, unbuckling it, proceeded to relieve himself upon the body.

His stream was weak. Steam rose as it hit the white jacket and the cold air. She turned away, but felt she could still hear the patter against the jacket and caked blood. She wondered if the boy had ever imagined, when he first received his fine uniform, that fate would lead to him lying face down in a muddy field, dead, his body half frozen, soaked in warm piss. She also wondered if the boy in the green pullover had ever imagined that his fate would have lead him to her field on a frosty, autumn day, urinating on the dead body of a boy who could have been a school mate just a few years earlier. She doubted he had. 

When the shout came from across the field, the boy looked to the house, scrambling to shake off his last remnants of the morning’s coffee. When he realised that no shout had come from the house, and the path he had taken from the kitchen door was still purely his own, his head snapped around, as if he had already guessed the cruel trick fate had played on him. 

Three newcomers, resplendent in white, from the woods. Three pistols, keenly trained on the young man (who now looked even younger) exposed in the open with nowhere to go. Without having had time to fix his belt and trousers, the youngster raised his hands.

The three men in white began striding towards their prey, guns still fixed upon him. The man in front began talking - asking questions that she could not hear. The boy answered, quickly. The man continued to move forward, questioning, gesturing with his pistol over the boy’s shoulder. The boy answered again; he turned as best he could, keeping his front to the approaching pack, pointing his thumb at the farmhouse in the near distance. The man shouted. No question was asked. The boy took half a step forward, lowering one of his arms and beginning to stretch it out. The bullet ripped through his hand and into his skull, exiting the back with a fearsome velocity, surrounded by blood and shards of white china. He fell backwards and landed in the mud, facing the sun. Steam rose where he landed.

Part III

The shooter lowered his gun and turned his attention to the other body on the floor. With his foot, he turned over the body in white and studied the distorted face. He removed the golden pin from his hat, kissed it, and placed it in his own. Turning back to the woods, he gestured for someone or something to follow them. At his command, a legion of white jackets materialized from the trees, as if a sudden snow storm had fallen on the field - their scarlet caps bobbing like poppies in a breeze as they marched towards their waiting comrades. At the front of the pack was an elderly gentleman, who carried himself with a silent dignity in the square of his shoulders and the ease with which he controlled the rifle slung over them.

Upon reaching the trio, the gentleman received an exuberant salute from the shooter and his two auxiliaries. Once an identical (though far more casual) gesture was returned, the shooter hastily pointed back, over his shoulder, towards the farm house. The gentleman nodded, ran two fingers over his greying moustache, then turned to one of the interchangeable figures that had followed but remained a respectable distance behind. After a short conversation, the gentleman strode back towards the woods, flanked on either side by an alert rifleman. Even from her perch above them, she could observe the confidence and decisiveness in this patrician. He had arrived, commanded, then departed ruthlessly.

She imagined it was also this professional ruthlessness that meant the younger men left in his wake now jumped to action immediately, as if any delay would result in a dressing down vicious enough to leave one a mere shell of a man. It seemed reasonable to suggest they had all seen at least one or two in close proximity, such was their obvious fervour to begin their approach to the house.

The shooter and his two accomplices advanced, retracing the steps of the youngster they had executed mere minutes beforehand, while the gentleman’s platoon divided and split off and hurried into the trees again to await their next emergence. A sudden crash diverted her attention back towards the house, where she caught the last few shards of glass from the bathroom window falling in front of the kitchen door. From inside, the long, narrow barrel of a rifle protruded and focused on the approaching party, accompanied by a command from a hidden voice. Unruffled, the shooter and company continued to march forward.

Another shout came from the window, the rifle thrusting forward as if to warn against any further encroachment, to which the shooter responded with an accentuated shrug of his shoulders and a jovial call back to the house. The rifle was discharged at this point - the bullet smacking into the thick, peaty ground in front of the still-advancing trio. It was a warning shot, designed to intimidate; one that had very little of its desired effect. Without a missed beat, the shooter effortlessly swung his pistol upwards, mid-stride, and popped a swift response through the bathroom window. From her distance, she heard nothing of its arrival, but the clumsy retraction of the rifle lead her to believe it had met something of its mark.

As soon as the shooter’s pistol lowered, another window was smashed, this time from the kitchen itself, to provide an unrestricted path to the white jackets. This time, the blockaded soldier was in no mood to provide warnings. Blood had clearly been drawn, and engagement was no longer a matter of discussion. His rifle found a target almost immediately, knocking one of the shooter’s flankers a few yards through the air and onto his back. He writhed on the ground, grasping at the top of his chest towards his right shoulder. After a bewildered pause, the remaining pair opened fire towards the window, ripping the wooden exterior of the house apart. There was no accuracy in the shots: this was a flustered response intent on keeping any further assaults on them at bay. Any of the shooter’s previous composure was lost in the realisation that he could soon find himself on his own back in the wet grass. He and his remaining flanker made for the far side of the house, away from the rifle’s aim.

Running made their suppressing fire even harder to direct, and the rifleman in the kitchen found himself essentially free to line up a shot on his now moving targets. His second shot missed, flying off into the field beyond his uniformed clay pigeons, but his third found a firm home in the leg of the second flanker. The scream reverberated around the farm and up the tor as the bullet lodged itself in the soldier’s thigh, burrowing and splintering its way in between the folds of muscle around the bone. He hit the floor like a horse over a misjudged hurdle as his companion disappeared behind the far wall, soon to find himself with the same morbid sentence as would await the horse. The rifle from the window stayed trained on him, but no further shot came.

For a moment, nothing happened. The shooter was out of sight behind the house and the rifleman, for the time being, had nothing to aim at. Nothing that posed a threat anyway. She deliberated making a move down the hill while the scene was calm, but feared that any movement in the stillness would give the keen eye of the rifleman something else to focus on. For now, it made more sense to stay where she was, despite the chill that was beginning to creep through her ageing bones.

Her decision was justified when, once again from the trees, she saw small specks of white begin to appear. This time, the falling snow came from the woods that bordered the smaller, semi-enclosed field behind the house, the one that faced the hiding place of the white-jacketed shooter, now deprived of his supporting players. He had clearly managed to get a message to his waiting companions, who now descended on the house like the first ominous flakes of a vicious, winter blizzard. They seemed to come from every spot of darkness between the conifers, moving swiftly and low to the ground. The rifle’s disappearance from the kitchen window informed her that however many of the green pullovers remained in the house, they had noticed this new threat and were repositioning themselves to stem its approach. The sound of shattered glass rang out again from the far side of the house - each splinter a small pin to her heart.

The shooting began almost immediately - the rifles crackling in cluttered turn like the fireworks from the village that rang in the new year. She had never ventured to see them herself, aside from the one year her father had driven them in their ancient, doddering truck and lifted her up on his shoulders to see the coruscating display above them. She remembered how her nose had frozen in the winter air and how her breath created clouds above the heads of the spectators crowded around them. Since then, and her father’s untimely passing, she had only ever listened from the kitchen or her bed, her eyes closed - the kaleidoscope of colours playing out before her in time with the distant explosions. Now she could only listen as the gunfire rattled, out of sight, and the white jackets continued to emerge from the trees, grouping together behind raised verges and the fencing that bordered the far edge of the field. Clearly, given the shattering din, the men besieged in the house were managing to hold their own, at least for the time being.

Part IV

A pair of white jackets had just appeared at the side of the house when she heard the metallic whine once more. It began high and seemed to spiral downwards, kicking up again at its end. One member of the group had been hit; he clutched his hand tightly against his thigh as another took off his jacket, which he tore apart and tied haphazardly at the top of the leg. It seemed to calm the man on the floor, who put his head back against the wooden exterior and looked skyward. She saw his long exhalation condense and dissipate. The now jacket-less comrade patted his compatriot on the shoulder reassuringly, stood, turned towards the hill, then received a bullet through his temple from the kitchen window. As he dropped, the injured man on the ground behind him scrambled like a startled rat, but one weighed down with a leg as useful as a flat tyre. The rifle in the window fired twice, before retracting and heading back to the barricade at the rear of the house.

She saw that smoke had begun to rise from behind the farmhouse, billowing in a soft, grey pall into the blue sky above, and the unmistakable scent of burning wood permeated across the fields, stinging the nostrils of soldiers and onlooker alike. It was unclear where the fire had come from - whether created by the attacking force in an attempt to smoke out the entrapped, or set as some sort of physical deterrent by the entrapped themselves. Depending on its effectiveness, men on either side would either claim responsibility or ignorance. Amid the crackle of raging gunfire, she heard the flames licking up the exterior structure of her home. Shortly, those flames would be visible on the far side of the house, spreading across the roof, urged on by the wind that had built to a steady gust, as if inspired by the chaotic scene beneath it.

The wind seemed to carry with it a low rumble of thunder .She twisted her body to assess the horizon for any sign of black clouds that had, until now, never threatened to appear. As she had thought, there were no signs of distant rain to make her current situation even worse, but the thunder was no trick of the mind. It remained and grew ever heavier. The mystery continued for a few minutes longer until she began to feel the earth moving underneath her: a slight shiver at first that built to a shake strong enough to bother the metal plate that had been fitted in her head as a child. From her position on the peak, she could still see, at the far end of the front drive, the ancient oak that she had fallen from as a young girl, splitting her head open on a thick rock that protruded from the soft ground underneath.

Now, edging ever closer to the gnarled trunk, came a pale behemoth. It rolled determinedly on caterpillar tracks, cutting up the ground beneath it, emitting that now familiar whine as it worked its way up the muddy path to the house. Its gun, firm and taut, shook as it thundered onwards, snapping a selection of the tree’s lower branches on its way past. It made little effort to avoid any such minor obstacle in its path to the battlefield - it was here for a purpose and no snippet of the natural world, tree or stone alike, was enough to halt it.

Upon its appearance, a passionate cheer erupted from the white jackets surrounding the house. They had clearly been frustrated by their inability to breach the battlements of the farm house, despite their numerical advantage. This arrival represented the turning of the tide they so needed. It was a cheer that contained the pain felt by the loss of so many of their own.

The gun fire ceased, no doubt as the men inside the house repositioned and attempted to decipher any semblance of a plan to deal with this new threat. Short of them miraculously producing their own tank, it seemed unlikely that anything other than a complete surrender would suffice. Her heart pounded in her chest as the monstrous vehicle rolled to a standstill a few hundred yards from the front door, its engine still thrumming beneath the inches of thick, wrought steel. If this came to an end now, perhaps there was still time for the fire to be extinguished and the interior of the house to be saved. She was increasingly aware of the proximity of her bedroom to the flames, and worried about the various, sentimental possessions she kept, safely, at the bottom of her wardrobe: pictures of her father, her mother’s silver ring, the small tokens of remembrance she had kept from their respective funerals, all tucked away in a small, engraved, wooden chest.

The hatch on top of the tank swung upwards, revealing the torso of a helmeted operator. Through cupped hands, he shouted something towards the facade of the house, addressing the welcoming party which had moved to the windows overlooking the approach from the main road. In a flash, he dropped like a ferret back into the hole, narrowly avoiding the bullet that ricocheted off the washed-out shell of the tank. Clearly, surrender was a plan neither side were willing to consider. Or, at the very least, whoever was in charge inside the house was unwilling to appease the enemy his men had kept out for what had seemed like days.

At this point, the kitchen door was thrown open and a green blur exited with a ferocity that could only have been fuelled by pure adrenaline. Obviously praying that he could make it across the fields and into the trees, he ran much like the young man in the white jacket, with an awkwardness bred by fear and inexperience. She closed her eyes and inhaled as she watched his limp body hit the ground. For all he knew, the shot was just as likely to have come from his own men inside the house as it was to have been fired from the rifle of a white jacket in the field. His face would have held the same pained expression either way. So many, she mourned.

Whether any other men in green pullovers planned to follow their former comrade will forever remain a mystery: the pale arm of the tank’s gun groaned as it was raised and turned a few degrees. It seemed the operator wished to respond directly to the bullet that had so nearly found its target. And respond he did, with a retort that shook the very foundations of the ground they stood on.

The shell cut through the exterior of the house like tissue paper and exploded somewhere within the upper level. The shockwave shattered any windows that remained intact, followed immediately by bright, orange flames that rushed through the egresses as if desperate to escape the devastation they themselves were causing.

With little hesitation, the huge bulk of the gun swivelled atop the tank, whining with the effort, before settling once more, this time aimed squarely at the front door. Due to the gun’s change in direction, the force of the second shot caused the entire tank to jump backward. The remaining force created in the explosion sent the second shell, inevitably, through the base of the house, where, with a sickening thud and thunderous roar, it made contact, decimating any part of the structure in its path.

Part V

Huge splinters of wood and stone were thrown into the air, and the house shuddered as its foundations buckled under the strain. Another cheer erupted from the white-jackets in the field as, with a horrifying crack, the house folded in on itself - the once-solid roof splitting along its width and releasing a plume of black smoke from the blazing interior. Those that had been lying under cover now stood tall and hooted, clapping and punching the air, while the tank thundered into life once more and reversed away towards the road, its job efficiently completed.

On the hill, she remained seated, embracing her knees, watching the growing flames consume her home.

***

The fire burned for hours - well into the evening - long after the white-jackets had moved on. After the tank had rumbled out of sight and earshot, the soldiers in the fields began to depart in small groups. Some left almost immediately and made their way back into the woods; others remained to survey the house and its immediate surroundings for any trace of… well, she wasn’t entirely sure what they were looking for.

Perhaps they weren’t either.

The only one with any semblance of purpose was the elderly gentleman, in his still-crisp uniform, who had returned to oversee the aftermath of the battle. He strode with gravitas from the woods, pointing, nodding and gesturing to the men around him who scampered to fulfil his demands. Many hands were shaken, backs and wounded shoulders patted as he made his way to the side of the wreckage. Once there, he stopped and simply observed, his hands behind his back - an image of firm serenity against a backdrop of chaos.

He stood for a good ten minutes until, after a whisper in his ear from an obviously hesitant officer, he turned, nodding to the messenger, before checking what seemed to be a silver pocket watch; it glinted in the late-afternoon sun, which sunk below the peak of the substantial slope in the distance behind him.

Perhaps it was this glint of sunlight that caused him to look her way, or perhaps it was simply a casual glance towards the eventide. Whatever the reason, she felt his eyes fix on her as he studied the fell, a noticeable anomaly on the thin canvas of green and brown; a hunched, frozen statue in neither white nor green. He turned, fully, to face her, ran two fingers curiously along his moustache, touched the peak of his blood-red cap, then spun on his heel and strode off. She watched him intently as he disappeared beyond what had been the rear wall of the house, then let her eyes fall back on the ever-blackening remains of the only home she had ever known.

***

By nightfall, the fire had mostly died. Pockets of flame danced in the still blackness, and smouldering embers released glowing ashes that danced like fireflies at the riverside in summer. She remained on the hill, shivering but otherwise motionless, cheeks damp from the tears that had formed through wind, smoke and pain.

***

Once the sun had risen, everything was still, save for the soft wind that rustled through the trees: the fires had burnt out entirely; no birds called in the skies or trees; there was no rattle of cow-bells or lowing of the cattle themselves. She remained seated, alone, atop the hill, staring out at what remained of the only life she had ever known.

Her knees, still pulled against her chest, ached. The morning air was cold and accentuated the stiffness in those old joints. Her nose ran and she could feel the moisture on her cheeks; the pain seemed to coarse through her veins. It was an odd sensation, she pondered, to feel so much torment and yet so numb.  At once, she felt anger bubbling in her stomach, desolation throbbing in her chest, and an unerring sensation of deprivation. And yet, outwardly, she remained still and stoic, fixed to the same spot she had occupied since the house had collapsed.

Here was a woman habituated to clarity - the jobs she had performed every day without fail for as long as she could remember - left with nothing but uncertainty and doubt. Here was the place she had always called home, where her father had both entered and exited the world, reduced to smouldering ashes that were lifted into the air by the wind. She had never considered a life in which she would not mirror her father, but that now seemed inescapable.

A white cloud meandered in the sky and she squinted in the bright, morning sunlight. She had not noticed it moving into position.

The cows should have been fed by now.