August 11th, 2024

When the caterpillars rained from the skies you were born. From sticks and cards and ale. Your people were that of carpenters and con artists. They carried you a great distance and when they set you down on the stone they collapsed.

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Year of the rain, seventy-six. You were so tired. Running for three days until feet went raw. The skin peeled off. Oh, how the birds did sing. And their beaks fell into the wood and the forest began to dance around the barracks.

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Mother died in the same place. The rain did not pause for grief. You could not shed a tear and so you let the rain wail. Sitting in silence in a grove that was once home to dozens of walnut trees before the third calamity. In seventy-eight it did come.