ribbon of river

It was a clear, fine day. The sun warmed the clay wall behind him and danced off patches of snow that dotted the distant mountain highlands. Before him spread the dusty valley in which he had grown up. Far below, a slender ribbon of river had begun to flow, a sure sign that Spring was coming.

The sheep grazing on the craggy slope in front of him were not his own, but those of his mother’s brother, a stern-faced man who disliked him. The shepherd cared not for politics or religion, only that the animals under his care made it home safely, each night, and that he could feed his wife and young son.

In the skies above him he heard what sounded like a broken motorcycle. Then the ground shook, his world went black, and the man who’d spent his life in honest toil was in an instant radicalized.

americanifesto / JPR / whorphan / 場黑麥