Mahtab's Story — Libby Gleeson

Mahtab was hollow. Empty, as if her flesh and blood, her energy, that kept her breathing and running, thinking and talking, was gone. Nothing was in its place. She was hungry. Hungry for water, for her father, for her grandmother, her aunts and uncles, for the trees in the back yard, the cabinet on the wall, the silver and glass objects so lovingly collected, for her mountains, the jagged peaks that cut the sky. Her father was dead. She felt sure of it. She was just a speck of dirt on the floor, drifting through the gap between the boards, falling to the ground.