The Girl in the Bardo (4/6)

The buffaloes wallowed in the mud churned by the heavy rains of the past week. Now the skies had cleared and the fields beyond glistened as if they were filled with emeralds. The wheat grew tall and plentiful, the barley smelled so sweet. Beyond the farm, the sheep grazed on the grassy highlands, where the swallows flocked across the crisp air, diving and swooping up in the sky in search of tasty bugs. They would return home later to feed their young in their nests beneath the eaves.

---

If you haven't already, check out part 1, 2, 3.

---

"Mama, mama!"

Her youngest daughter, Pini, came running around the garden fence.

"What is it, baby?" Maya asked her.

"Lula head-butted Chodi, and he fell in the mud."

Dhala, the elder sister, led the mud-covered boy, who was crying disconsolately.

"Oh darling," said Maya suppressing a smile. The boy was covered in mud from head to foot. "Are you hurt?"

"Lula hit me!" said the little boy.

"I'll have a talk with that naughty goat," she told him, wiping his face. "Now go on with your sister. She'll clean you up."

She watched her three children go around the house, and she let herself smile. With a cloth, she wiped the mud off her hand, and she was about to head back into the house, when she saw a rider coming down the road. Even at this distance, she recognized the horse's gait and the rider's posture.

Tinley had only been away two days but seeing him back filled her heart with indescribable joy. As he approached the gate, he was waving something in the air. He was still waving it when he dismounted and running towards her, he planted a big kiss on her lips.

"We got it! We got it!" He shouted showing her a piece of parchment with writing on it.

"What does it say?"

"This says the land is ours! It says all our dreams will come true! " He hugged her tightly and spun her.

"Oo, careful love. Don't forget the bun is still in the oven."

He knelt on one knee and gently pressed his face against her visibly round belly.

"I can hear him laughing for joy!" he said.

"And how do you know it's a he and not a she?"

"We already have two girls," he said standing up. "Another boy will bring balance."

"Well, dear husband, I think it will be another girl. Balance is overrated."

He buried his face on her neck and growled.

Laughing, she pushed him away. "Come sweetheart, lunch is almost ready. I'll call the children. They'll be so happy to see daddy back."

Tinley put his arm around his wife and together they went inside their comely home, where the gentle smoke rose out of the chimney, and the garden up front was in full bloom. The mountains in the distance were capped with snow at the summit. Their jagged peaks the end result of vast processes that spanned across millenia, but which in the grand scheme of things was just one ephemeral moment after another.