What is Home?

They came everyday. It was their hideaway, where they could come whenever they wanted to escape, to relax in the peaceful atmosphere. There was nothing like the soft zing of the line casting out into the pond with that artful plop as it broke the glass surface, nor the accompanying swishes bringing the line home. They never really caught anything much. The fish swam contentedly at the bottom of the pond, their large scaly bodies moving silently back and forth in the cool deep water, just out of reach while the sun beat down from above. It was a serene, almost surreal way to spend the summer and summer was all they had.

This is the beginning paragraph of my Young Adult novel-under-construction. Fabula, Sitku and Anik, the three characters in this story, are brothers. They live in a world where ox drawn carts, stone huts and dirty roads are prevalent and I doubt they'd know what you were talking about if you asked them about toilet paper or even paper at all for it's scarce and hard to come by.

People often think of home as being a secure and loving shelter from the storm of life. A place where everything is always warm and fuzzy. Other's say "home is where the heart is." Home for these boys is a heavy burden encompassing memories of great happiness from a time before their mother became ill and great sorrow as the watch her slowly slip away from them. Every night as they go home, they attempt to keep out of reach of their father's half-drunken temper knowing that it is because of his angst over being helpless to save his wife and treasuring the moments they have with their mother, coaxing her to smile and trying to ignore how hollow her face has become.