The eye of the lion

Sitting on the ground, in the grass, Tom Barrow was watching the fires of distant Marseille with reddened eyes. Dawn was breaking.

He had arrived at the beautiful port that night and wandered around there for a few hours until, after going into a local bar for a beer to celebrate his arrival in Europe, he’d met Louis.

Louis was a pig-farmer who regularly went to the port to sell his animals to a local exporter. After doing his business he almost always went to the same bar for a few glasses of wine. He was a chatty, honest type and Tom liked him right from the start. They became friends and Louis asked the American if he wanted to work for him at the farm for a time, while he settled in.

But it wasn’t to be. They’d hardly been driving north for an hour, when a sound like thunder, distant and persistent, shattered the windows. An instant later, a brutal blow which almost lifted the van off the ground made Louis lose control. The van careened off the road and rolled over twice. Louis’ neck was broken and he died instantly. Tom dragged himself from the vehicle, bleeding and confused, and looked south, terrified.

Marseille had disappeared from view, and in its place a cloud of vivid red smoke filled the sky.

He had stayed there, lying on the ground, for several hours. Looking desolately at the disappearance of the beautiful port and his dreams, in that infernal blaze.

When at last everything was dark and the last lights were extinguished in the night, Tom stood up laboriously. He pulled Louis’ body from the van and buried it next to some trees, a lump in his throat. Then he picked up his things and started to walk north, not giving a thought to where he was going. His mind was blank.