The Ladies of Horror
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The Wind in the Branches
by Angela Yuriko Smith

Listen, in this wind you can hear the sound of a thousand mothers keening, every soldier falling was somebody’ son—someone’s daughter. A thousand children crying alone, a thousand weeping angels, a thousand howling dogs… a thousand, a thousand, a thousand and then the numbers no longer matter. They become multitudes, too numerous to count—statistical throngs. When the bodies pile up this high their edges become soft, their unique lives blend into a single mass and they become legions of loss. Listen, the cries are so loud they echo straight from the past and into our future. If you peer into the next moment you can see us there, broken, on our knees, our cries adding to the wailing winds. Babies destined to end up decaying in foreign lands, their bodies fling from womb to war in a flash, their mothers stretch their empty arms across the sea, tears salting the waters…

…and here am I. My arms are still full. Selfishly, I clutch the lives I ward close. I can see the future where my own voice joins the medley of weeping. I see the approaching pain rolling in like a storm on the horizon, a tsunami cry building up across centuries. They come as a colossal wave to wash us all away. When the horror hits I will try to stand still and stoic and tell myself that because I saw it coming I should not flinch…but I will flinch. My knees will buckle, my keening wails will feed the wind. I too will tear my hair, rend my clothes and cast dust into my eyes in sorrow. I can hear my grandmother’s grandmother’s voice, cast high, speaking words I can’t understand, yet the meaning is clear. It’s an immigrant’s goodbye to home, to the land that birthed her, a plea for a new land to show mercy. Like my grandmothers, I too turn my back on where I was and hope where I go will be kinder. 

Will the wind ever

Be free to carry laughter?

Must we always weep?

.

Fiction © Copyright Angela Yuriko Smith
Image courtesy of Pixabay.com.

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Angela Yuriko Smith is a third-generation Ryukyuan-American, award-winning poet, author, and publisher with 20+ years in newspapers. Publisher of Space and Time magazine (est. 1966), two-time Bram Stoker Awards® Winner, and HWA Mentor of the Year, she shares Authortunities, a free weekly calendar of author opportunities at authortunities.substack.com.