Notes

The wind whispers through the walls of the little wooden house, blowing the flame of the smoky lamp from side to side. An old man sits, resting his arms on his legs, looking down at the wooden floor. How long will it be, he thinks.

The end must come soon, it must. Across the room from him sits a woman. She İs a stranger and does not belong in this house. Everything about her is different - she looks different, she sounds different, she smells differen't

She has sat here in this poor little house for seven hours, it stilt the wind carries her expensive perfume, a smell from another world. She and the old man are different in every way, but she, too, sits on an old wooden chair, looking down at the wooden floor.

How long will it be, she thinks. The end must come soon, it must. Sometlmes they hear a cry from the other room. Each time, the old man feels that cry all through his body, a father feeling a child's pain.

A loud scream brings both the old man and woman stranger to their feet. They wait. Minutes later, an old woman comes through the door, holding a baby in a blanket.

The blanket is new, brought by the woman stranger. She now takes the baby from the old woman, but she does not move the blanket to look at the baby's face. She is not interested in that. She the without a to the old inan.

A loud scream brings both the old man and woman stranger to their feet. They wait. Minutes later, an old woman comes through the door, holding a baby in a blanket.

It is months before. Before a baby is taken away in the night from a mother who is a child too young to be a mother, It is months before a father decides that he must lock his daughter in the back room.