For disclaimer, go to prologue.
Chapter 1: Potatoes and Ashes
2001
The Colour of Potatoes
Potatoes are brown.
The creamy olive blemishes always punctured with rusty brown spokes.
Not that it makes a difference. Death was here on his job.
He was busy today. And as he left the potato factory inferno he knew he had not missed a thing. Then there was the matter of the boy laying by the flames with his potato clutched between his sweaty palms. Somehow, he knew. Today was just like the iron chain that before now had rolled endlessly within the belly of the factory.
What Happens
1. A potato is safely deposited into worker's hands.
2. Then begins the peeling.
3. Once it is done, it is done again.
4. Then again.
Just a few more minutes.
Death could smell the faint waft that was potatoes and ashes rising into the creamy olive sky punctuated with tufts of dark brown smoke from the wreck. It was the mirror image of the boy's potato before it had been devoured by the hungry flames. He lifted away the boy's father.
Slowly, gently, that did it.
Slowly, gently, the boy's lids fluttered shut.
And then slowly, gently, he lifted the boy away too.