SANDS OF DELUSION 

By Tessa Harvey


Alice was worried and a little frightened. Some big youths were following her. The little girl went faster, her heart beating fast as her feet moved swiftly. But the men picked up their pace also.
    She wished she hadn't taken the short cut home past all the wasteland.
"Hey, Chink!" a male voice roared. "What's the hurry?"
"Don't get too close," sniggered another, "we don't want COVID." Alice turned bravely to face the three big men. "I am Eurasian," she said firmly, though inside she was quaking. "I not Chinese."
    Stressed as she was, her accent reverted to the one she had used as a small child. Her thoughts were like small birds scattering before a hungry feral cat.
    "I not Chinese!" mocked the first boy. "She can't even talk proper," he declared mockingly. Something strange was happening to Alice. She felt as though she was shrinking inside, huddled inside a dilapidated sinking boat adrift on a pitiless ocean. The sun beat down.
    Her body felt hot and strange. Suddenly she threw up, swayed and fell down in a small huddled heap.





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