My heart thuds in my chest. I find it hard to breathe, as if there is a stone lodged in my throat and I cannot force air past it. I feel as if my entire body has turned to stone. Hunger gnaws in my stomach, burns up through my chest, flows down my arms and legs, grates over my throat. I cannot breathe. I feel as if the entire world is on my shoulders. I feel as if I am nothing. I feel as if I am everything. 

I kneel alongside the rows and rows of worshippers, the whole town gathered in the rolling square. The young and the old and the sick and the healthy alike. All together. All kneeling. All together for now. For now. For now. And us being together gives me a sense of strength. It gives me the ability to face this horror that we are all faced with. 

On everyone's face is etched the same mask of reverence and worship. Everyone's mask is perfect, is flawless, is impenetrable. But I can see beyond their masks. Because I really look at their eyes. I really look into their eyes and deep, deep inside those dark pools is terror. Each and every time, it's terror. And a cascade of other emotions, too many and too complicated to be named. 

Whichever unlucky person is chosen will have to leave the group. Whichever unlucky person is chosen will have to shoulder the burdens of the whole town in their fragile, thin arms. They will carry the stress of having to carry us all, they will bear the responsibility of all of our fortunes and fates. All of our fortunes and fates. That is too much for anyone to handle. But handle it, we must. And we must handle it with dignity and grace, no matter how fake the dignity and the grace is. 

Time seems to still all around me as I kneel in my place, in my carefully-positioned place in the straight row that is part of the dozens upon dozens of rows all stretching out before us. I feel as if I have been kneeling here forever. I feel as if I will be kneeling here forever. But still, I'd rather kneel here forever than be chosen. 

———

"We have to make do with what we have," Marsita is telling us through her all-consuming tiredness. I can see her exhaustion in her voice, in her eyes, in her face, in her posture, in her body language, in everything. She is trying to hold on, to her life, to her fight, to her will. She's trying for all of us. But last week her husband died. It's hard to be strong. 

I am sitting in the clay hut of Marsita, a few huts over from my own hut. There is a ragged collection of people from the community here. We're all leaning against the walls, barely able to stay sitting up, letting all of our energy go. Scattered across the laps of the older ones, there are young children. Shajira, Baira, Namaro, and Kyare. They are almost limp as they lean against their adults. I have little baby Alara on my lap. She is sweet and soft and thin and limp. But she's breathing. She is still breathing. I feel her breath against me, and for this I am beyond grateful, 

Normally, someone would be cooking on the clay stove at the end of the little room. But right now there is nothing to cook. 

"We should have more," Shajira says, looking out into the sky with her dark eyes. She holds an anger within her. I can tell that she holds an anger within her. That is not good. 

"Now, don't blame anyone," Ereeth says in an exhausted, calm sort of way, the candlelight reflecting on his silvery gray hair. "We don't need to cause unneeded rifts."

"I'm not blaming anyone," Shajira replies, blowing a tuft of black curls away from her eyes. "I'm just saying, it's not fair."

Beside us, Jasey is sleeping. I watch his breathing, slow and shallow, rising and falling almost imperceptibly. There is something foreboding about the way the candlelight of the dark room settled over his peat-dark skin. 

"Are you blaming the great and powerful Lady?" Marsita's voice carries alarm within it. And I totally understand why. No-one can blame the Lady about anything. Lest she hear and curse us. But still, she cursed us already, with our harvests failing and our year spent hungry. She cursed us already and I do not know how she could curse us any more. 

"I'm not," Shajira replies, I'm not blaming her. I'm just blaming the situation."

"Do not even say what can be thought of as blame. For if she hears us, I know not what she'll do." There is protective alarm in my exhausted voice. I have to make sure that she stays safe. That she keeps all of us safe. Or, as safe as possible in a time like this. 

"And, remember," Alaro adds in, "we cannot blame Darjo either. He's young. He's very young. And he had a great burden placed upon him those many months ago. He did the best that he could. He did the best that he could to please the Lady. And we should not place blame upon his young shoulders." Alaro's clay-red skin shines bright in the candlelight, almost like blood. and there is something slightly haunting to him. 

"I'm not blaming him. I'm just blaming the situation." She presses on, sweetly, the young child, more oblivious than she should be of the danger that's all around her. Of the danger that's absolutely everywhere. 

"Be careful," I warn her. "You should not be blaming anything. You should not be making it harder for us."

I keep my eyes on Jasey. He is still breathing in the smoke-tinted air. He is still lying on the hard clay floor of the hut. He's still sleeping, oblivious to the hunger and the hurting and the need and the death of the waking world. I almost wish that he stays asleep forever. Sleep is the only place where it doesn't hurt. It's the only place where nothing hurts. But no, no I do not wish that at all. We need him. Everyone needs him. We cannot do without him. I don't know why, but we cannot do without him. We need him to stay alive. 

"Why can't we talk about how sad we are? Kyare asks. 

"Because," I answer, "it's not safe."

"Because of the Lady?" They ask. 

"Yes, sweetheart, because of the Lady," I respond. Hunger gnaws at my gut and twists apart my insides. I feel as if I have been scraped hollow, scraped raw, left bleeding. But I feel like this all the time. This past few months I have been feeling like this all the time. 

"Why does the Lady listen to us?" They ask with their tired, youthful voice. 

"The Lady does not listen to us all of the time," Alaro explains. "But you never know when she might be listening. You never know when she might be looking in. If we want to have a good harvest next year, if we want to eat next year, we must make sure that we do not displease her. And that means that we must be grateful for everything that she gives us." Alaro's words come out slowly, with many breaks in between. I understand why. In this stretch of time, they really sink in, true and necessary and terrible. 

"But how do we know when she's looking?" Kyare asks. There is something curious in their voice. Something dreading. And something just, lightly hopeful. 

"We don't know," Ereeth responds. "We don't know if she's looking in on us. We don't even know if she can look in on us. But her power is too great to rule it out as a possibility. She controls the harvest. Who knows what else she controls?"

"Anyways," Marsita cuts in, "this conversation is getting far too negative, my young ones. Why don't we move on to another more positive line of talking? 

"Like what?" Kyare asks. There is something hopeless in their tone. 

"I don't know," Ereeth replies, "maybe we could talk about next year when the harvest will be better. What are we going to do then?" 

"I'll make rice cakes," Namaro tells us. Sweet, little Namaro. Sweet little all of them. Each and every single one. "I love rice cakes."

"I love rice cakes too," Marsita tells him. "Rice cakes are so delicious. And they're so soft and fluffy and lovely. Hopefully next year we get a lot of rice. Hopefully next year we get a lot of rice cakes. Enough to make up for all the hunger this year."

"I hope so too," Namaro agrees. "I hope we get lots and lots of food. I love food. I miss food." Sweet kid. I relate to him, I relate to him so much. I'm sure we all miss food. I'm sure we all miss it so much. Not that we don't have any food. No, the Lady is too merciful for that. But we don't have enough. We don't have nearly enough. 

"I miss food too," I tell him. "I miss it so much. But I'm holding on to hope. You have to hold on to hope too. You all have to hold on to hope. Hope is all that we have after all. Hope is all that keeps us going." The baby is my arms is still breathing. Still breathing. I am so glad that she is getting to rest. Sweet baby. 

"Do you think we'll have a good harvest next year? I hope we do." Namaro's young, dark voice has a hint of lightness in it. 

"I think we will," Alaro replies. "Just hold on hope." 

"Yes," Ereeth echoes, "hold on hope."

"We have more good years than bad years," Marsita tells everyone. 

"But we still have bad years, though," Baira tells us. And there is something imploring in her adorable little voice that does not pronounce everything properly. There is something amazing as well. 

"We do, Baira, we do," I tell her. "But we can't dwell on the bad years. We have to dwell on the good years."

"We have to dwell on whatever we have," Alaro adds in.

"And we have to be grateful," I finish. "We have to be grateful to the Lady for all that she blesses us with. Do you think you can be grateful?" 

"I think I can," Baira replies, voice thoughtful. "I think I'll try to be. But it's hard sometimes."

"Of course it's hard sometimes," Marsita acknowledges. "Of course it's hard sometimes. But it's okay. You're okay. You'll get through it. We all will. And you'll find your ways to be grateful and to count your blessings despite it all. You'll see that there's a lot that we have, a lot that the Lady gives us."

"Like what? What does she give us?" Baira asks. I can tell that she wants to listen to us. I can tell that she wants to be grateful. But she doesn't know how. And that's understandable, that's so understandable. A lot of us don't know how sometimes. 

"She gives us good harvests," Ereeth replies. "And she gives us all the things we need in order to have good harvests. She teaches us to be humble and grateful and thank her for all she gives us. You have to be grateful for that."

"I'll try my best to," Baira replies. There is something determined and resolute in her little voice. In her big, dark eyes. And I'm proud of her for trying her best. I'm really proud. 

"Good job," I tell her. "That's all you need to do. You just need to try your best. That's all we all do. We all try our best and we do what we can. And guess what? It's enough to keep the Lady happy, most of the times." My words come out slowly. I try not to put an emphasis on most of the times, but it happens anyways. Most of the times is the key phrase here. Our best is not enough to keep the Lady happy all of the times. We have too many years when it's not enough. Far too many. 

We keep talking, trying our best to ignore the hunger and the aching that's inside of us. The conversation is a good distraction. It's a good distraction from the pain. But it doesn't do enough, it doesn't go far enough, not nearly far enough to help us all. But still. Still I am very glad and grateful for the people around me. I am grateful for the words that flow on all around me and the words that flow into my ears and through my mind. I'm grateful for the words that flow from me. I'm grateful for the fact that the others listen to them, that they hear me, that we all hear each other. 

I'm grateful for the baby in my arms and I am so, so worried about her. She was born in the midst of a bad year, in the midst of famine and hunger and need. And she never got enough nourishment in her life. She never got enough. I hope so strongly, hope so hard, that she doesn't die. I hope with all my being that she lives to see better years, that she lives to see years that help her grow and thrive and bloom and flourish into the radiant individual that she is meant to be, that she already is. 

We keep talking, we all keep talking, until one by one we start to fall asleep. There is nothing else to do. It's too dry to raise crops and there's no food to preserve and prepare and cook. All we have to do is talk. Which in its own way is a strange sort of blessing. 

I look towards Jasey, as the night is pouring darkness in through the cracks of the shutters. And he's not breathing. He's not breathing. I move immediately to tell the others. 

"Jasey's not breathing." My voice comes out small and stilted. It comes out forced and squeaky. 

"What?" Marsita's voice is dreading and determined and purposeful. It's calm in a untraceable sort of, in a strong sort of way. 

"He's not breathing," I reply. I still find it hard to force the words out of my mouth. 

Marsita goes to kneel over Jasey. She puts one dark hand on his dark neck. And she feels for a pulse. 

"There's nothing there," she says all at once.