Year of Wonders

by Geraldine Brooks

It is an odd thing, how biting pests of all kinds will find one person flavorsome and another not to their liking at all.

And so, as generally happens, those who have most give least, and those with less somehow make shrift to share.

A tumble of fluffy, tufted clouds covered the whole from horizon to dome, as if a shearer had flung a new-shorn fleece high into the air. As I watched, the rays of the rising sun lit the edge of each cloud, turning it silver, until suddenly the fleece became instead a mesh of shining metal.