At that age,
I was almost too short to look outside.
Through one of my windows, all I could see
was a cloud, an ocean of ash.
It suffocated everything.
Out the other window, I saw the people in town.
Out both, I saw darkness.
Dad had always said, the job of dam keeper
is to keep the darkness away.
But by then, I was doing it alone.
I was the dam keeper.
Ugh.
Dad had always
said the job of a dam keeper is to keep the darkness away.
But he never told me what to do when it surrounds you.
His mask protected me from the cloud.
But nothing I had protected me from the people.