Ashes and Reckoning

The fires took the paddocks, the church roof, and whatever was left of a small town’s certainty. They did not take the smell of smoke from the pastor’s clothes, or the habit of standing in other people’s ruin. He has already buried his children. He has already watched the sanctuary sold to men with plans and quiet smiles. Then he walks into a blackened barn and finds a neighbour hanging from a beam. The official story is despair. The land knows better.

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