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The family is off-kilter, their footsteps out of sync. The rope bridge shudders above the stream, a trickle of chocolate milk coiling between the camp and the Savannah.
That first night, a chorus of whooping hyenas swells beyond their tent and the porcelain-skinned child whimpers in his bed. His father curves over him, soothing him to sleep. Outside, a Maasai stands guard. Wrapped in a red checked shuka, his legs are spindly and bare.
The boy’s mother lies alone, remembering the service station en route to the airport; remembering the heat, the whine of cars, the molten blood throbbing at her temples.
“It’s safe,” her husband had said, without curling his body around hers. “Just don’t walk around at night.” His sigh was scalding.
The morning of the game drive, the boy skulks over the dappled grass towards the breakfast table. She wonders if the fear lurking in him is really hers. But by late afternoon, he is laughing as the Jeep bounces across the plains, his hair streaming golden in the setting sun. The bleached grass smells of childhood summers. Venus hovers on the horizon.
Returning to camp, a tyre bursts and they come to a halt. The night sky compresses the vehicle, slinking in through the open windows. They will have to get out and walk.
The guide leads them, armed only with his spear. She shadows his willowy figure, feeling ridged tracks underfoot, sensing shapes scurrying nearby. Cold drapes her shoulders, her skull is leaden, her limbs as if hobbled, but the boy appears taller, striding ahead.
A campfire wavers up ahead and from the dark, her husband’s arm envelopes her. Together, they cross the bridge spanning the strand of dusky water. Swaying. His hand is braided with hers, a floating path unravelling before them.
About Ali Mckenzie-Murdoch
Ali Mckenzie-Murdoch (UK) lives in Zürich, Switzerland. Her work appears or is forthcoming in JMWW, Fractured Lit, Ilanot Review, Flash Frontier, Bright Flash Literary Review and others. She is a Fractured Lit Flash Open Contest Finalist, was shortlisted for the National Flash Fiction Day 2023 Micro-Fiction Competition and received an Honourable Mention in the 2023 Scribes Prize.
