After being expelled from their homeland, Antun and Inajda Rekaya fight to stay alive, whilst being herded towards Mongolia by the military. Their parents died on the way, and the children are hungry and exhausted. (CLICK HERE for next chronological story)
GREAT stuff, Cheryl!
Thanks, Mark. Do you have any more drawings I can see? 🙂
Uhhhh sadly no. I’m having a bit of a “freeze” in my ambition. I have several started just nowhere near done.
Ah, I’m glad you’ve started some, I’ll look forward to seeing them in the future 🙂
Quite a story, I must say it is quite a pleasure and quite entertaining to read your posts. Thank you for sharing them! 🙂
Thanks Joe! 😀
Reblogged this on iamf8.
Stark reality – well narrated. I’m enjoying my visits to your blog.
Keep it up,
Eric
Thank you Eric, you’re welcome here any time. I appreciate it. Cheryl
Wonderful characters – sadly it all sounds familiar – the suffering that people cause – the constant war between tribes an nations.
Hi Lee, thank you. Yes, this was a difficult one, but I’m glad I wrote it. This is a story which has been waiting for a few decades now, but there’s never really a good time to release something like this, as world events keep this subject a constant reality somewhere in the world.
Cheryl–
As usual, you are a master of story telling–only, Mongolia is a long ways from Russia. Do you plan on having them ‘walk’ there?
Grandpa
Ah Kenny, yep Russia’s a big place! Antun and Inajda’s home (at that time; they’ve lived in various parts, such as St. Petersburg and Moscow; which I agree would be an impossible treck) was situated in the south, and was about 50 miles North of the Mongolian border, so they walked. Thanks for reading. I appreciate it. Cheryl
Full of pathos and a grim reminder of how people, through no fault of their own, become refugees. The anguished faces in your illustrations heighten the feelings of loss and despair.
Hi Russell, thank you, yes it’s been one of the hardest stories in this series as it’s close to what’s happening (and has happened throughout history) to innocent people in so many places around the world. Fiction is an uncomfortable mimic sometimes, but there are a lot of very good people out there, in our real world to counter some of the horrific and unspeakable cruelty. (Xan and Edith hopefully do justice to them.)
This is so terrible and yet so beutiful.
Hi Rosemary, thank you for taking time to read, I appreciate it. Cheryl
Your articles are so amazing that it’s my pleasure to read them 🙂
😀
Your drawings are awesome. I always astonished when I see it. Everything fits within the story. Fantastic 🙂
Thank you! 😀
Good stuff! Makes me want to read more.
Hi Paul, thank you!
A very moving edition. You really made me feel the horror of the refugees. A horrible place to be. The images of the murdered parents was very haunting. Both your writing and illustrations were very effective. Nice work.
Thank you John, I appreciate it. I debated over the drawings, and something as horrible as that needed only to be in the writing. I’m always aware of going too far with a public post. The imagination is more powerful than any drawing, I feel. I’m glad it worked, as it’s always difficult to get the right measure. With something like this, the reader fills in a lot of the gaps.
You made the right choice artistically. Drawing the corpses wouldn’t have made it more real than my own mind did.
Ah, the human imagination beats words and pictures every time in my opinion 🙂
This is so sad, but so brilliant. The horror of the mother’s open eyes is so visually acute, and haunting. Love the drawings again, Cheryl!
Thank you Richard, I’ve been debating how to tell this story for a while, but felt it was time to release it. To me the tragedy is that Inajda and Antun will never truly know their parents, and stripped of them, Inajda, especially becomes quite hardened and emotionally remote. She cares deeply about her family, especially (in the future) her children Alexand, Heyem and Farokh, but she never recovers, never becomes the woman (or mother) she would have been had her mother and father survived.
Every time I turn to your blog, I’m amazed at your creativity. Once again, just wonderful.
Thank you, that means a lot 🙂
Wonderful creativity, as always!
Thank you, bookdiva!
Ah! This is gem of a blog! Thanks cheryl for liking mine, as it led me to discover this ultimate piece of creativity. The stories are incredible, but the drawings that complement them are ..priceless.
Thank you so much.