Pink Snow

The ground all over the city is covered in a light dusting of snow. Pink snow. The cold has pulled up the blood from the soil from wars years past. When it melts rivers of red will flow.

The cold pulled up more than just blood.

At first our elders were overjoyed to see their ancestors, some again and some for the first time. The risen were celebrated, a miracle.

They spoke only in whisper, and only in the ears of our wise elders.

My sister thinks the risen are angels. She tells me that ever since they came to us, our leaders, the elders, have a holy light in their eyes. To me their eyes seem more dull.

After the celebrations, talk began to spread amongst our city. Talk that we've forgotten our people's ways, our culture. We must take the risen's return as a sign, and revisit our history and traditions. Our early religion.

It wasn't long before the first round of sacrifices, perhaps two weeks after the risen's return. The mayor asked the police commissioner to find three infants with blue eyes. No one spoke of how he found them. There were no weeping mothers at the ceremony.

Held at city hall, with limited space, soon only the wealthy and influential are allowed to attend the ceremonies. Before long the unknown mothers are all are too well known. Poor women cry openly on the streets. Unwed girls from my school who once wore over-sized sweaters to hide their families shame, now have mink to keep the cold away. Mink and dead eyes.

Grandmother, who use to tell me stories, legends of our people and the great wars of our ancestors, doesn't let me and my sisters out after dark. Her blue eyes speak words she dares not say again. The legends. She does not remind me that the last Great War began when the most powerful of our people took too much for the sake of their gods. They got too greedy, and took too many of our beautiful babies. Because when there were no more light-eyed babes, they came for the older children.

A mighty revolt started with the first toddlers' screams. Poor fought the rich, and while the rich were more skilled they were outnumbered. Many stories are told of brothers fighting brothers, separated by social standing, tragedy we of the present should learn from.

Were told. The stories were told. My grandmother won't even recite them to my youngest siblings at bed time. She doesn't speak much. And as if the air itself makes it difficult, neither do we. We just sit here, in our small house, with the curtains drawn and the locked, waiting. Night after night, for dawn.