The Children of the Euphrates

The children of the Euphrates were the misfits of Lorrighnton, a cultural amalgamation of misfit ideas--an abnormal growth on the outskirts of town, akin to the weeds sprouting alongside the cobblestone streets. They were a hopeless tumor of cultural assimilation and savage examples of indoctrination.

Along the Euphrates way, Mary Elbert Hemsway and Scott Wilfred Hemsway began their morning routine by re-burying their brother, who had escaped the night before. Katherine McConnel, at the first house at the intersection, began boiling knitted dolls, the ink of their makeup dyeing the water a lively grey, while her husband, Aelfred McConnel, rocked an empty cot and sang the anthem of the deep true blue. Meanwhile, Alejandro Rodriguez burned a suspicious bag in his backyard, as Jamal Abdi peeked through the hole in the fence. Priest Kaida Hiroto cloaked himself in his usual mourning garments, the neat amice and black Zuccheto placed neatly on his balding head washed down by a quick swig of wine.

Margaret Shelly Thuman could not have expected a more exciting morning as she watched the children hang their legs from the hanging tree at the centre of the roundabout in the street, while the other mongrel children watched. She was a widow by abandonment, supposedly left with nothing but the biggest manor on the street, as well as her late husband's wedding ring, finger and all.

Married at twenty-two, much of her life had been dedicated to her leech, who unfortunately, due to ill fate, had been dabbled with pink Himalayan salt. As the blisters of her marriage wore off, she found herself searching for a suitable companion, preferably a widower--recently so; she herself could arrange that. She often found herself gazing out the held panes of pristine glass that captured the dancing sunlight in myriad reflections, pondering the future. She also found interest watching and learning the habits of the children of Euphrates Way, a street on the outskirts of town where any individual could purchase a plot of land nearby. However, therein lay the point: any individual.

As she sat in her chair by the window, she waited, anticipating the start of Alejandro's routine. She felt the twelve-sided dice in her hand; they felt coarse today, as if their surface layer had been weakened and scratched by age. 'The air is different today,' she thought. 'The executioner lobs a head.' She flicked her wrist, and as the dice whisked along the floor and rolled two twelves, she immediately redirected her gaze back to the hanging tree.

The children of Euphrates had tricked a new boy into coming down the lane, his absence securely unnoticed by his parents. He wasn't the youngest there, but he wasn't the oldest either; however, he was the start of Alejandro's routine. Like a bloodhound, Alejandro crept out of his house. The Hemsways stopped digging, Jamal Abdi lurked behind a bush, Katherine cooled the stove, and Aelfred paused momentarily in his tune. The street waited.

The change in wind. The hound stomped out of the house, the Euphrates children scattered, but the outsider remained, stunned, confused. Alejandro reached the boy in a flash, a quick flick of the wrists and a momentum like a bull; he grabbed the child, placed the hanging tree's noose around his neck, steadied the stool beneath his feet--all while the child screamed and shouted. 'They never do go easy,' Margaret thought. Then he kicked it, he kicked it, and the rope went taut.

Margaret opened her notebook, marked the date and begun her diary entry.
'Today is a good day to hang the chook.'