MOSAIC BY CHRIS ASLAN
PAPERBACK PUBLISHED BY LION HUDSON 23RD APRIL 2021
When a lot breaks, it’s useless at best there might be a shard that you can use to scoop again. But what about broken life? What about me? I feel so fragmented. Can I be repaired somehow? How do I live with the hate I feel towards those I’m supposed to be closest to? My life is in pieces and I don’t know what to do.
Will one tragic event leave friendship and family ties irrevocably broken? And how will a historical Middle Eastern mountain community deal with news of a miracle worker? Is he too good to be true?
PAGE ONE
How can everything change so fast ? I’m spreading handfuls of dried lentils onto grubby linen, squatting in the afternoon sun as I pick stones. I’m seething on how unfair life is. I look up occasionally to crick my neck and to glower at my mother, who studiously ignores me as she weeds her patch of onions and leeks.
I wish you were dead, Amma, I think to myself, narrowing my eyes as I gaze at her.
She turns sharply at me. Don’t think you’re too old for me to take a stick to you. She says testily.
I hold her gaze, determined that she’ll turn away first, but then we both turn, because there are cries and shouts from further down the path to the main village square. One moment I’m spreading lentils, and the next I’m suddenly wishing life could go back to being boring.
We glance at each other, resentments forgotten wondering what’s happened. Brushing our hands on our tunics and adjusting our headscarves, we head out through the gate onto the rocky path down to the prayer house bumping into neighbours, occupied until just now with their own similarly mundane chores.
ABOUT WRITER CHRIS ASLAN
Chris Aslan spent his childhood in Turkey and Lebanon and much of his adult life in Central Asia. He is a writer, lecturer on art and textiles, and a leader of yours to Central Asia. You can connect with Chris on Facebook.
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