Ghosts

Troubles come in threes, as all the old men said sitting in their secret tent. “Troubles come in threes.” Just like that, chewing on the roots we brought them so they would stop cursing our sex and let us grow our man-hair. Some of the other other said they didn’t want to share power with a generation that never fought in the fields for the ox and threw rocks at the city walls for the families they lost. I don’t spend my time shouting at ruins and scaring away the ghosts with my children’s bones. I don’t have children to loose and it isn’t right to borrow another’s. Once, one of the ghosts spoke to me, I found him moving rocks in a building that still had a second floor. He said he was looking for food but I know ghosts don’t eat and told him so, I knew they just trick you into giving them living food to steal your dignity until they can buy back their own. He said he was no ghost and I left it at that, no point arguing with the dead. Trouble comes in threes though, so the old men say, and the dead walking set them all squeaking about the second and third. Maybe the ghosts will know.