Numbers 3: Infinity

The little girl sits in the dirt. She’s been exploring the forest, but now her legs are tired and she doesn’t want to walk any more. Anyway, it’s nice here. With all the stones and leaves and twigs around her she could make a nest for birds, or a house for mice. Her fingers are busy – picking things up, putting them down, arranging them – and her mind’s busy, too. She makes marks in the dirt with a stick – lines and circles – and her mouth moves as she sings herself the song that goes with her dust-pictures.
She hears the motorbikes before she sees them, a background whine that becomes a drone that turns into a roar.
She holds her hands over her ears. She’s never seen a motorbike before and now there are three, big and black and fast, belching out trails of dark smoke. The girl glimpses metal and rubber and leather between the trees.
‘Dragons,’ she whispers, and the pupils in her blue eyes grow wide.
The motorbikes slow down.