'Animals' by Nastasya Parker

Whispers, like dusty hoof-scratchings before a bull charges. Nama fetched the water and a girl pranced from the queue at the well. Her family owned fewer animals than Nama's, but their house had more windows.

'Is it true you eat in the same room with your chickens? I hear your brother is half-goat.' 

Children Nama had bent over school books with, leapt in rare rain with, crowed laughter. 

Throughout the week, it swarmed to locust pitch. Blood-spattered tales slithered south. Nama's parents insisted they had only friends in town; no one here would heed the radio’s squawking. 

So Nama was surprised on the night. The tailor who bought hides from her family barked commands: ‘They are subhuman! Let’s be rid of these beasts.’ His men raised machete claws, black against the flames of her house. Nama’s mother covered herself with a smouldering sheet. Her father was crumpled beneath the acacia tree; her brother sprawled vacant-eyed.

The herd grasped Nama. She recognised faces. One man had a daughter in her class. 'Eugenie,' she shouted. 'I know Eugenie!' Nama helped her with spelling each week.

But they understood nothing apart from their own roars and howls. She was trapped in serpent arms, bruised by monkey thrusts. Dry, cold grass prickled beneath Nama until it became wet, hot; the only softness she felt. The men’s faces looked dead as her brother’s. Their mouths were clamped, eyes stony. No use pleading with them, for what jackal dares look in the eyes of a mouse?