The Needle And The Stone or the platinum Jupiter

A land of amputations and disabilities. Bombed ruins. Faceless faces. Thumbless children. Burn wound skin like the clay ground under the oven sun; suffocates like men hidden in a tanker truck for too long while the checkpoint guards make small talk with the driver. Yet the sun is like dusk and gleams an ocher sodium; the ancient flayed skin of Christ. And such God whimpers through the scream of every lifeless child. The drones laugh. The snipers maim. The turrets poke through the apertures of the high partition walls and point down to destroy whatever trips the hidden sensors. Leaflets and bombs. Imaginary lines. Shepard slings. Blood eagle.

Omitsuk wants to live but also wishes for vengeance. She has survived whole and she is doomed.