‘Is this moon the same as the one on our rooftop, Ma?’
‘Yes, it is the same moon. It’s the same moon everywhere.’
‘No it isn’t.’ She slipped out of her mother’s embrace and ran to the opening of the tent. ‘Look, it is red. It looks so angry. It’s not my moon,’ she sniffles, pointing to the sky.
Her mother doesn’t reply. She stands behind her daughter and stares out into the night. The stench of death and loss reeks from the moonlit-bathed alleyways. The embers of once lived-in homes still smouldering.
They are safe here, safe for now.
But they have lost too much on the other side of the border.
‘You’re right,’ she finally says, pulling her child close to her. ‘This is not the same moon. We left it far, far behind. So she can show your father his way here to us.
Susmita Bhattacharya is an award-winning writer and lecturer in Creative Writing. She facilitates creative projects in schools and the community and also mentors underrepresented writers through the Middle Way Mentoring Scheme. She is co-founder of the Write Beyond Borders Mentoring Project and the ACE funded ‘Bridges not Borders’ project.
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