Valley Of The Sighing Wind

The horse stopped dead in its tracks. Restive, on its hind legs, it neighed.

I dismounted.

“You will know it when you reach there,” I recalled the sage’s words.

Mist slyly revealed silhouettes of burnt trees in the distance.

“How will I find her in the dark?” I had queried.

“Spring returns to the parched land the moment one meets their beloved.”

“And if I don’t?”

“You become what you search for: the forsaken.”

“And I can't return?"

“The drought will follow you.”

While descending into the eerie silence, I looked back.

The horse watched me, foreboding in its stillness.

From Guest Contributor Sathyajith Panachikal

For the prompt Frontier

Every Mickle

The local Farmers’ Bank went belly up.

It was a cooperative concern, like many in the region. The Secretary of the Bank had taken a loan in her late husband’s name on forged documents. Almost all the staffers either embezzled or connived with the defalcators.

Investors, most of them traders and peasants, were shell-shocked. Some blamed themselves for their imprudence while others huddled indecisively.

Kali, the old woman who sold candles, also had a deposit in the bank.

As the bank’s director exited from his car, she confronted him.

“Where’s my money?” Kali yelled, catching the man by his collar.

From Guest Contributor Sathyajith Panachikal

Sathyajith. P.S has reconciled himself to the reality that it is impossible to be reborn in an ancient past with a smartphone and internet connection. Currently, he is trying in real earnest to regain the originality he had when he first chanced upon this planet.