The Water Girl

A little story I wrote for my four daughters... about life perspective.

"Every picture tells a story, don't it?" — Rod Stewart

AUTHOR’S NOTE: From my ‘Every Picture Tells A Story’ Collection. This means I wrote the story based on the impression given to me by a photo or image.

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Every morning, Zahra’s job was to bring water to drink, wash, and mix with meal to make flatbread. She followed the trail up and over the small ridge that shrouded and protected the homesite from an open range scoured by the wind.

The path had been created by countless years of bare feet. Her grandmother and mother’s before... and after her, a daughter’s… the child she would bear. Barely a teen, she was of an age for a husband. It would be soon.

It was not what she wished for. The teacher had taught her to read before he died, and the traders had left a few books. Some had pictures of a world and life she could not fathom.

Seeing them... reading the words left her changed with a vague feeling of discontent.

It was quiet and cool by the river, there in the still sleeping darkness before the sun’s heat—already felt on her back as she descended the bank—burned it away.

Zahra paused for a moment but couldn’t take more time than was expected. She thought of how the teacher had told her of cities and far lands. Of the world and how large it was. With a sigh she didn’t realize had come from her, she stooped to fill her jar.

The sun, higher on the horizon, was in her face as she trudged back to her small existence. All she knew.

In that last serene moment, she wondered how other girls started their days in the so very big world.

“Take a walk down by, take a walk down by the river.

“There’s a lot that you, there’s a lot that you can learn.

“If you’ve got a mind that’s open, if you’ve got a heart that yearns.”

—Hidden Treasure, Songwriters: Jim Capaldi / Steve Winwood

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The original image that I wrote from:

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Other Stories in My ‘Every Picture Tells A Story’ Collection

UPCOMING (For This Site):

• Abaddon Rising

• Ask For The Dance

• A Time When It Was Fast

• Born Different

• Catch & Release

• First Contact

• HALF

• Honey — Get That Book

• Ink & Shadows / The Siren’s Sonata

• Leaving Taos

• Martha Vanderwayne

• Sundown Dogs

• The Candle

• The Crossing

• The Girl In Blue

• The Knocking Dead

• The Last Augur

• The Stars Above A Ramshackle Fence

• Tide Buried Bones

• Thou Shalt Not Thou Shall

• Through A Lens of Dark & Light

• Waiting For My Witch

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