Flag, Forest, Pistachio

The setting sun cut clear lines through the ragged flag that sagged wearily against the tepid breeze.
Nadia trudged home, numb to the surrounding destruction.

Everything she’d had was gone, taken by some marauding army or militia or other - it was hard to tell them apart. Husband and male children forced to join one of them. Her income, her pistachios and the trees they grew on, napalmed and unrecoverable. Her little home in a little forest now little more than a hovel, not fit for a dog.

One foot followed another followed another. Not a single tear fell.