Aaron Lloyd

Beyond

Standing atop the great wall, the hot wind sears our rag-draped almost naked body, and the burning sun reddens our prison-blanched exposed skin. Sand whips our face from the vast desert before us and we turn to the hagged, bent man beside us, held tightly, as are we, by a bristling muscled guard, oiled arms glistening with sweat beneath leather and polished metal. We squint at our companion, another half starved prisoner, gaunt and stooped, defeated, eyes closed, ready to accept his fate. He cracks his eyes open, and croaks a rasping crackle, eyes suddenly wide as he is flung from the edge of the great wall unceremoniously, tumbling, strangely like a scrap in the wind, emaciated, falling, flailing, crunching; to an end below, then drifting and settling, finally, in a still heap at the bottom of a sand dune. Rejected, expelled.