New Year’s gift of orphans: 3

Both mother and their father are far away. Dead or absent—the best intentions, or the worst— it hardly matters. Misery is the same; time passes slowly across the crusty rooftops, coal smoke rises slowly into the gray sky, unfamilial spirits greet the heavens, and brown birds alight carrying crusts of bread and flit off without hugs, without kisses. The best part of the two orphans’ day is when they pass, fitfully, to sleep, for then they dream that it would be otherwise in the morning.