The International Writers Magazine: Flash Fiction

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Afrique - l'heure bleue • Marja Hagborg Brittle white bones, they are everywhere. Heaps of hipbones, leg bones, fingers pointing at the sky. You turn away in horror but you can't escape, you find rows of skulls, broken like egg shells, smashed with machetes - without a human thought - by men with cold hands and eyes of hyenas.

All this you see under a monkey tree while the whole world is turning violet and soon blue - and after that - nothing.

Memories are erased, shaved off with sharp objects, medicated with powerful potions, shredded and thrown away. Only you can't forget. Still, you wish you could sleep - if only one night - breathing calmly like a baby cheetah.

I'm holding your shivering body while you keep repeating you can't make the movie. Can't I see how impossible it is in this evil country? But then why are we here, I keep asking. You can see it all so clearly through your magic lens but you close your eyes every time a silent baby dies and a man without legs begs for food. Didn't you know what kind of hellhole you would find here?

During the blue hour you drink whisky and cry. You say I don't understand you because I'm disconnected and lost. You don't believe me when I say the world will listen to you. We both know I'm lying.

© Marja Hagborg May 2006
marja@pobox.com

Cat's Paw
Maja Hagborg

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