R J Hembree - Writers' Village University

When he was done with the vest, he packed it away with five others that
would be taken to market in the city. He put away the leftover scraps of cloth and
his box of thread and swept the dirt floor, cutting a wide path around the
wheelbarrow.
Then he unrolled his prayer rug and knelt. It was hard to pray when his
heart was heavy with thoughts of Jamala, how she had looked the last time he saw
her, wearing her brown burka,. her beautiful dark eyes visible through the mesh.
She had loved small things: the plants that struggled to grow in this hostile
environment, the brilliance of the light, even the goat’s rancid smell. “It is the smell
of life,” she said. When they were alone in the house, she would take her burka off
and reveal her beautiful face, her laughing eyes. She would remove her shoes and
dance with naked feet. “Life is good, yes,” she would say. “We have each other.”
Always she would be waiting for him when he came home, the sweet smell of tea
filling the house. Her skin was smooth, tan with sunshine.
When he was through praying, Pir rolled the prayer rug up and bent over a
small counter where he prepared green tea and tore himself a piece of naan for his
evening meal. He would heat up some leftover lamb stew that Sardar Rahim had
brought him, cooked by his wife’s sister who had come to the village to take care of
him. That night he would sleep on the mat he kept under the counter. Again, he
would not go home.
He was ready to close the shop when a man he didn’t recognize entered. The
man’s hands were dusty from travel. Pir hoped he wouldn’t handle the cloth.
“I hear you have shoes here that can be got for free. I am looking for women’s
sandals,” the man said. He was well dressed. His trousers were a brown and gold
weave and his long cotton shirt hung over them. A wide gold sash wrapped around
his waist. He drove a new jeep that he had parked right outside the door. Pir
wondered what he needed with the shoes of dead villagers.
“They’re in the wooden wheelbarrow behind the counter.” Pir didn’t like the
idea of someone from outside the village digging through the shoes, but the sooner
they were gone, the sooner everyone could go about business as usual.
The man went behind the counter. Pir did not watch him. He was tired and
anxious to close the door and be done for the day, even though he knew he would
not sleep.
The man was careless with the shoes. Pir heard some of them hit the ground
as they fell from the wheelbarrow. It was disrespectful, and it took all of Pir’s will
power not to yell at the man. Finally, he came to Pir and showed him the four pairs
of women’s shoes he had chosen.
“These will do for my servants,” the man said.
Pir was glad there would be four less pairs of shoes in the barrow. When it
was empty someone would roll the wheelbarrow away and put it to another use,
but not before every last shoe was gone.
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