Chapter II. The bough

A thin bamboo stick heaps skin on him, a rough hand grips him tightly, and he wraps around himself trying to escape, the stick turns around and cuts through the air for fractions of a second before slashing the skin of his back, he screams at the top of his lungs, Help, help, only the old man’s voice answers, oh you shameless bastard.

The men’s thick mustaches and beards did not flinch as they walked, sat on the benches of the nearby grocery store, and stood on the sidewalk as they witnessed a man in his seventies stalk a ten-year-old boy until he reached the doorway to the courtyard of the house, ready to grab him at a moment’s notice and start the punishment. The boy still needs more schooling because his father’s absence from the home turned him into an unruly, disrespectful child who talks more words than he can actually understand.

With all his resourcefulness, he told the old guy, “This is our tree,” damn him, he’s stupid, doesn’t he realize it’s a disputed tree?

One of its branches grows in man’s land; it breaths his land’s air, and its leaves grow on the sun’s rays.