His DNA in the Dust
June 2021: People’s Prize Winner – Retreat West’s Micro Fiction monthly competition.
Luke grows up with a heart-shaped family who cuddle him, but they’re chunky and freckly not gangly and earthy-brown. When he asks why, their gentleness wills him on.
He searches, discovers an aunt, then a cousin.
Across the sky, Tunisia smells of diesel and mandarins. He locates the tiny town and graveyard, walks through ordered rows of stones. His heart moves towards a cedar tree, crumples beneath its evergreen.
Twilight, moonlight and sunrise, these words squeeze breath from his chest: ‘Proud Young Father, Beloved Mother’.
His penknife blunts scratching dust and rubble off the headstones, to fill his pockets and socks.