Drought

witnesses to our secret existence.

Birds sing from the trees and swoop over our heads, darting from one tree to another. Their song and screeches follow us all day, the only

Long ago, before Otto, Mother fancied Darwin, and he fancied her. What drew her affection? Was it his height and muscles? Or perhaps the ice-blue eyes that are shaded, always, by a battered leather hat with a broad brim? None would be enough to turn my head. Perhaps whatever she loved left this brute long ago.

Once each Congregant gets a cup and a spoon, they stand to the side, waiting for Darwin to decide on the day’s quota.

But I have never seen cities. My entire life has been trees, and leaves, and the tiny lake that our cabins cluster around. It is so tiny that it does not even have a name. It’s just the Lake.