Homestead: I

The houses were separated more by geographical elevation than by human terrain. It was a shanty town where principles were more in word than in spirit. People around boasted of one god, one religion perhaps one of everything but in deed nothing was inclusive of all. These two houses, one on a cursed mound of earth, the other nestled by destiny's bends had a strange secret in common, the secret of a tragic destiny that existed like municipal water in a township. And being a tragic township, it had a sad story to tell everyday like a morning coffee.
A cold night, a mother and two kids, one a frightened little girl, the other a stiffened little boy from the nestled bends huddled up together in front of the other house seeking shelter for  a night. They sought shelter from a state institution  and from the blood hounds that chased them for their lives.The matriarch of the house stood before them and delivered her cruel judgement and refused to let them in for the night. They stood lost, poor rich heirs of  a well known lineage and yet their determined mother boldly settled with them behind a shack nearby. But human cruelty was let loose in the matriarch that night and she found them aided with the moonlight and cursed them to clear her one god, one man wreck of a homestead. Watching the cruel scene, an equally lost woman within the interior, broke the law of the matriarch and scampered out unseen, unheard. She unrolled a stolen mat away but still within the shambles of the matriarch's homestead. Too tired for dreams or nightmares, too survival prone to judge human cruelty,the mother and the children spent one among their many nights of hunger,fear, alone ness, loss and pain. They woke up next morning to another morning coffee of grief.