The washer woman
She moved awkwardly, as the day rained heavy, under a slate grey sky, full with it's own misery . Walking gingerly on her one good hip, she picked her way through the ankle deep mud, as the sadness of life seeped In. All around closed faced people stared blankly out from half made shelters, scavenged from nothing; as each fresh down pour, brought fresh burdens that sloshed into the overfull gutters; as first warmth and then despair gave way. She stopped every so often , adjusting the heaviness;eyeing the dread ahead, the low dense bank of grey cloud threatening in; more rain would come she knew; as she struggled to retain grip. Her arms hurt. The basket was too heavy. It contained too much. At one time, or another it had been her mothers; and like all her mothers burdens it had eventually come to her. A settler's town had been no place for a child. But came her mother had , with all her misery, and soem of another's; chasing a man who would not stay put.. And that Misery had grown till, hovering above the open sores of suffering, around which people like them tried to form their lives . But that was 5 years ago, and it was old woman now, who sat wordless and muted in the black long years of memories, swallowed down in things of which she no longer spoke. Those many walled-off, secret sufferings that lay stale and buried in her throat.. MB
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