The Blockade. Sushma Joshi

The blockade started quietly enough, on a rainy day in mid-March. It was the first rain of the year. People breathed in the smell of wet earth as if it was a long-forgotten blessing. In the bushes, the last remaining springs of yellow winter forsythia bloomed side by side with dusty spring jasmine. This flowering was troublesome, highlighting the nature of a world in which time had lost its moorings – spring had arrived early, too early, two months before winter's end.