The morning after

The traffic jam of porters crossing the suspension bridge late in the morning was nowhere to be seen. Children did not come out of their houses, women didn't go to fetch water. The crickets in the bushes, normally deafeningly loud early in the morning, didn't chirp, the desperate loud croaking of the horny toads was gone.

The air smelled different that humid Summer afternoon by the river. The smell of mustard flowers and fresh earth was replaced by the pungent metallic tang. The strong earthiness of the lichen growing on the rocks and the trees on the mountain gave way to a sharp sour whiff of something, it irritated one's eyes and burned their throat. The air was misty and foggy, the sun was out the birds were chirping but this was no regular day.

Thick coagulated pools of dark-brown goo around the park hinted one of the terrible massacre that had occurred the evening before. Clumps of hair, bits of broken skin and tissues on the sharp edges of rocks. The splatter patterns gave hint to the atrocity of the violence. Deer that roamed freely about there were not to be found, it was as if they were scared by the inhumanity of it all.

Sobs. Faraway sobs, carried by the rivers and the gullies, reverbrated and resonated in the hills and valleys. Ear-piercing wails had been dampened and softened by the forests, but the emotion of being stabbed deep in your heart by your rusty kitchen knife remained. If you paid attention, tuned out the sloshing of the river the rustling of the branches, you could hear urgent shouts. Men arguing debating, planning something. There is no celebration in the air, no victory sounds. If this was a war, there were no winners.

Footsteps, rushed ones, clops and claps of horses. And suddenly men in dark blue and black patches their heavy hardy boots hardly blowing the dust under their feet. The stretch at the gorge that took a good hiker fifteen minutes they passed by in eight. Neither spoke a word, they communicated only through nods. Muffled sound of static and unintelligible faraway voices came in through the sacks on the horses' sides.