She rested on beach, reclined in chair, watching her children in the surf. Bright-clear of sky, sun high above, she watched the waves slow-rise, then roll and crash, breaking into foam. Her children played in low-height swells, gleeful in waves lift and rise in height along their open legs; sound of the crash, then whisper of foam as it settled back to smooth.
Not all that far, tropical storm touched land, but there shone no sign in where they were. She thought how different life and circumstance can be in near, but seemingly completely different worlds.
Her day was perfect—sea and sand and open sky; her children in their innocence and joy amongst the breaking waves. Not a cloud, not a shadow, and she did her best to not allow darker thoughts to shade.
Away from the north, politics of faction that crept, subversive, from Old World into New—same bigotries, same hatreds, new alliances of ignorants who knew neither hearts nor history of the Mahdi, intractable and unchanging—for those that did were killed, systematic, one century upon the next—regarding all not as themselves.
She felt a chill run through, drew blanket of towel around, and though sky was without single cloud, there was a darkness she could feel.
She attempted best not to think, but she’d read the news of storm near to—darkness, rains, and flood—and she thought how, close, how fast, a perfect world, a perfect place, suddenly can change.
She drew the towel away, denied intimidation of thought and shudder’s cold. She would not be intimidated, covered, made submissive out of fear.
Resolved, returned and restored from darkness of thought, she rose, and went to her children in surf. Together, they splashed. Together, they played. Together, they lived their love and joy in boldness amidst sand and surf and cloudless sky—life absent the crescent, world and moon in new.