Nadifa Mohamed - The Orchard of Lost Souls (294-95) lyrics

Hargeisa looks beautiful for once, the sky an unusual haze of pink and purple, clouds tinted with smoke, tin roofs like golden pools reflecting the huge orange setting sun. The devastation is lost within deep shadows. She puts her binoculars to her eyes and scans until something comes into focus: a slice of road and the wheels of a car. The burgundy Toyota stops by the side of the road and about eight civilians disgorge from it. Other refugees run along the road and then walk a few breathless steps before resuming their flight. Swinging back to the car, she watches a father escort his young daughter—a girl of five or six in a spotty dress—to the scrub along the track to urinate; he holds her up by the arms and keeps his shoes far away in fear of splashes. A hail of mortars falls nearby, one of them only a few feet from where the father and daughter stand, and all the pa**engers jump out of the bushes and scurry back to the car. The father darts after them and gestures desperately for the girl to catch up. She stumbles behind, dragging her underwear up with one hand. The father jumps in just as the car begins to pull away; he holds the door open but the driver speeds off, leaving the little girl behind a screen of exhaust fumes. More missiles fall but the girl doesn't stop her pursuit until she is engulfed in a volley of a Katyusha rocket fire. Filsan drops her binoculars in disbelief that the father has just left his child to die. The car, now only a dark speck, continues up the winding road to Ethiopia.