bring me peace

[Caspa Al-Fateh]

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Most did indeed like flowers. Caspa had a favourite kind: her poppies, the beautiful lilac-petalled tall, dancing beauties. As Krystalle reminded her of her desert life, a life Caspa knew only from stories, she rummaged in a pocket of the coat, and drew out a twist of leather. She unfastened the thin thongs that held it shut and peered inside. The tiny black grains that were seeds smelled intact; they would grow. She used her teeth to tear off a section of the coat's lining and poured some into it. Then she tied the corners together and tossed it to Krystalle. "Plant these somewhere you'll see them often, cover them over with some good loose soil and water them, they'll grow into flowers that should lift your spirits when they next need it." She hoped that explanation would suffice for someone who had perhaps never grown something before. By all accounts, not much grew in a desert. Thinking of the desert reminded Caspa of her childhood stories and she thought of the hot sandy dunes, mirages, date palms, things she'd never seen, only imagined. She stared up at the leafy canopy, fresh and green from the rain that had moistened the ground. Faraway places, so unlike these, seemed to hide behind the clouds which soared above the branches. "What kind of people live in the desert now?" she asked. All her stories were old, so old, from the time when humans had ruled the earth, or thought they did.

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