BLOOD, SWEAT, AND TEARS
By Neel Anil Panicker
Makhan Lal offers one last look at the arid expanse before him.
All his weary eyes can spot are acres upon acres of barren fields.
Sweat-lathered tears stream down his heavily lined visage and die slow deaths on his bare-chested, all boned torso.
This year’s been particularly harsh: no rainfall, no crop, no food, and two deaths_ his brother and his
his grandson, all of two weeks.
His weather beaten sixty-five year old self can take no longer.
The decision’s made: migration; to the city, to any place that will get his family of seven two meals a day.
©neelanilpanicker2017 # fiction # shortstory #99 words
February 23: Flash Fiction Challenge
Written for
February 23: Flash Fiction Challenge
February 23, 2017 prompt: In 99 words (no more, no less) write a migration story. It can imagine the dusty or arctic trails of the frontiers past or look to the travel across the galaxy. What issue about modern migration bans might influence an artistic expression in a flash? Migrate where the prompt leads you.
neelwritesblog 
Neel, I really felt drawn to the photo, the two cute kids eating. And then I read your flash, and felt the keen pain of a man distraught by the devastation of drought, yet likely his family place. The emotion was clear in your flash, Well done!
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Dear Charli, it was exactly the emotion I wanted to capture. I am so glad you saw that and I do appreciate it. Thanks Charli.
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