Late

Here’s another one of those bittersweet stories you all love so much. Enjoy!

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He’d ridden to the village to read out the names of those fallen in the war. He hated himself for reading the list, for being the one who had survived.

The mothers, sisters, and daughters gathered around while he read the list in a stumbling monotone. It took him more than an hour to confirm what they already knew.

A woman with mouse-brown hair under a scarf and a face that grief had stripped of age, put her hand on his arm, before he could climb back on his horse.

“Stay,” she said.

He needed to ride to the next village, but the weight of their loss had him in its gravity, and they sat him in front of bread and apples and ale before he could decide.

There was no hurry to ride to the next village to tell them what they already felt in their hearts, and he spent the evening at the inn, sitting opposite one of the few remaining old men.

They fed him too much food for breakfast the next day, and he accepted a glass of schnapps to ease the pressure in his guts, and then he was too tired to find his horse. His commanding officer had not given him a schedule or a specific date when he needed to return, and there was a girl in his bed that night. She was pretty through the tears dripping down her cheeks as they made love.

The villagers surrounded him whenever he went out until he couldn’t bear to be alone. The women took it in turns to keep him company at night, and on the nights when they were busy, one of the old men would sit up with him in front of the fire.

They watched him eat, but touched no food themselves. They had turned the mirrors to face the walls, after hearing his list of names, so he relied on them to do his hair the way it was supposed to be, and tell him when he was too fat, or not fat enough.

The old men insisted that gin had always been his favourite drink, or brandy. Or that he had never drunk anything other than sweet wine.

The villagers grew fat, and the man slept poorly through nightmares that he did not live there, but had ridden in on a horse, which they had eaten to prevent him from leaving. Once its meat was all gone, they would eat him, too.

One after the other, though, the women’s bellies popped, and they smiled in relief at having got him out of their systems. They strolled the streets with tiny new people. He did not recognise them, and yet he knew exactly who they were.

It was time to go home. As soon as he had read out the list of names that he carried around to tell the children who they were.

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And speaking of coping with the past: I don’t recommend much hip-hop, so when I do, you know it’s the bees’ businizzle. Experimental hip-hop pioneers Dälek have just announced the release of their raw new album, Precipice. Check out the first song right here!