(“Winner”, After Dinner Conversation Writing Competition)

After the war, I traveled to a village in the south of the province. It was my intention to vacation for the weekend in an unknown land. I followed a small river that was alternately green beneath the foliage of the forest and blue while it coursed through elevated plains and sunken but exposed valleys. I was driving one of those all-terrain vehicles that permitted me to follow paths that were clearly less traveled. It was not an aquatic vehicle, however, and I was forced to abandon it to a finely camouflaged bog. I breast-stroked to safety while my truck took water through its sun roof.

With mischance at my back, I followed the river on foot until it opened up into a small lake. On the northern-most shore of the lake, a settlement, of sorts, sprawled upward into black hills, its watery threshold flagged and dotted with light, fishing craft. I walked through vineyards and a peach orchard, each of these bursting with fruit, until I came to what appeared to be the main thoroughfare of the village.

The street was desolate save for mongrels as numerous as flies. They lounged about on their flabby bellies, yawning and blinking in the sun, and, apparently, abandoned by their lords and masters. One of the mongrels, more animated than the rest, fell in behind me wagging its short, stubby tail. I stopped to pet the flank of the animal and noticed that its tail had been freshly severed at its point. Remarkably, when the dog craned its long neck to look, as a greyhound might or a horse, the root of its tail became fixed when I clutched the memory of its remainder.

Sorry. Stories are free on our website for a period of time and are moved to Amazon.com. The Amazon kindle app is available for smart phones, computers, tablets, and e-readers.