Elan’s Journey

Ten-year-old Elan stared out the window of the speeding pickup truck, across the wide expanse of cracked earth to where the fat orange sun made its lazy approach towards the horizon.  The skeletons of water-starved mulga trees, and the occasional cluster of dried brown hummock grass told him he was still in New South Wales, and still a ways from the river.  The river that would take him home.

“Got at least two or three hours on ‘em,” James said from the driver’s seat.  “Don’t worry.”

Elan didn’t respond.  He looked down at his small dark hands splayed across his knees, then across the cabin at James’s, so much larger and more capable.  There was strength in those hands too, that even four more years couldn’t account for.

“I won’t let them take us back.”  The older boy tightened his grip around the steering wheel, the crisscrossing scars around his knuckles and forearms telling a story of defiance and survival.

Elan sucked in a deep breath, feeling a chill settle deep into his bones.  “They’ll kill us.”

Poguri’s Awakening

A dark blue overcoat lies in tatters, the fabric full of holes, the edges frayed. Two black boots have started to detach from their soles. A pair of long fuzzy brown ears, not attached to a head or anything else, sits in a loose bundle. The rest is little more than tubes and fluff, not so much a Noumin as the assorted pieces of one – incompletely formed or completely torn apart.