Means the World

The family (and soon-to-be family) (and maybe-someday family) sat in a circle around the room. After spending the past three days together they were exhausted, but happy. Questions and answers were tossed around the circle, funny stories exchanged, and “remember when’s” laughed over.

The grandparents, sitting next to each other survey their family-daughters, son, daughter-in-law, son-in-laws, granddaughters, soon to be grandson-in-laws- and smile.

The Grandfather speaks up above the other voices and everyone respectfully turns to listen.

“I think I speak for your Grandmother and myself when I say how proud I am, how proud we are, of this family.”

Somewhere in the Grey (for May 25)

We stagger through the fog. It burns our eyes. We don’t know where we are going. We cling to each other.

I open my mouth to speak, in a desperate attempt to communicate. The bitter fog fills my mouth, burns my lungs; it chokes me.

I can’t breath. I can’t breath.

My hand drops from your arm.

You disappear.

My hands grope around in the grey. I can’t find you.

Where are you?

My lungs constrict. I fall to the ground.

A hand on my shoulder. Two more hands pulling me up. 

But I don’t know who it is.

Panic

The Intermission

It's the moment just after you put your hands on the keys, but right before the next notes work themselves into your instinct. It's the moment between steps of a dance, when you're in motion to the next step, but you've yet to recall how it goes right after. It's the part when you're smiling to the crowd, admiring the numbers, and you're just about to pick up the microphone.

The tension was felt like a blind man handling another's face. The next step wasn't yet known, but it was only a matter of time until it grew into action.

One of Us

Fifty grey soldiers.  Our general in front.  Hundreds of others listening over radio.

“It’s true. We’ve found it.  A place without the faceless. ”

Applause.

 “But eighty men died getting there.  Twice as many will die if we try again. The enemy units must be annihilated… there’s only one way to this effectively.”

Murmurings.

“One of us won’t be coming back.”

Silence.

But someone has to go.

My brother’s dead. I killed him.

My friends have burned.   I watched them.

What’s left for me?

I step forward.

Lift my hand.

Am I certain?

Am I sure?

“I’ll go,” I whisper.

Elusus

Red smoke rises in the East.

Black smoke billows from the West. 

And here are we. Stuck in the middle. In the middle of north, and the middle of south. 

Where the winds meet, smash together. Rebounding away. Away. Away. 

The winds carry the ash.

They carry the stench of death.

Of blood. 

And here are we. 

We are the cause.

We are the cure.

We are the destruction.

We are the rebuilding.

But we do nothing.

Our words echo around us as we sit in a cement room.

Shaking from all we have done.

“The world is ended..” 

Ended. 

The Smith

He toiled long and hard at his craft. He hammered and shaped and worked and reworked. When it wasn’t good enough, he stuffed it back in the fire. He tempered it with time and heat. He fashioned it with blood, sweat, and tears. When it was nearly good enough, he held it up to the light, examined every facet, sought out the flaws, and brought it back to the flame.

See the fruit of his labors. See the working of his mind, his hands, his heart. See the passion and the joy of the wordsmith.

Black lines on white page.

god's words

You know when you lay in bed at night, the cool air making your nose red, the covers pulled up around your face, and you just feel lonely? just so lonesome for something, for someone to wrap their arms around you and huddle under the covers with you and kiss your cold nose. i know it sounds weird but he is that to me. i find refuge in his words, and when i’m tired and i feel alone, i curl up in bed, and read what he placed on the minds of a person thousands of years ago. and somehow everything's better. somehow i don’t feel so lonely anymore. somehow the darkness is bearable and the void next to me is tolerable.

Somewhere in the Grey

I’m breathing hard, eyes closed, waiting for the bullet.

My gun still hovers beside my comrade’s head.

And a busload of soldiers, with curses and disbelieving shouts are drowning each other out.

I don’t listen.

But suddenly, a crackle and a voice that’s different:

“Command, this is Delta106, we have affirmative on objective. We’ve breached the perimeter.”

We’re frozen. Staring at the radio.

Because there’s some forgotten sound behind his voice.  Like music.

It’s birdsong.

Is this real?

I drop my gun.

Maybe there is sunlight on our horizon.

Somewhere beyond this ash is the place where life still lives.

Somewhere in the Grey

The answers are sometimes hard to find. Why me? Why her? Why him? Why us? Why now? Why this?

Why?

We crane our heads around corners, peer long and hard down the corridors of life, looking, searching, waiting.

There is comfort in not knowing. There is peace to be found. I don’t know the answers.

But I know the One who does. And He has promised that all shall be well.

The answers are sometimes hard to find. But isn’t that the way mercy works sometimes? Not seeing the black and white but knowing the answer is somewhere in between?

Somewhere in the Grey

Right down that road. Can you see it? 

It’s beyond that turn. Down that hill.

Off in the distance it awaits.

Tell me if you see it, would you please?

I’m trying to avoid it. 

But it still sits there, ominous and growing. Breathing. 

For you see, I can’t live forever. And my death is fast approaching. 

Somewhere in the grey area. Beyond where I can see. 

It’s haunting, forcing me to run away. 

Where can I run that death can not find me? Where it can not reach out it’s pasty fingers and grab hold? 

Perhaps behind the grey? 

finals.

I open up the crimson locker with a swift twist of my hands to find books staring back at me.
The spines read, Biology, World History I, Algebra.
Daunting names.
Frustrating lessons.
Such a long year. I'd learned so much, how am I supposed to remember all of it?
How do they even think that I can get a passing grade for this, anyways? 
She wanted to forsake it all and just go lay on the beach somewhere with a book and a lemonade next to her.
It was too much to ask, though.
She had finals week ahead of her.

blather.

It is something in the pit of my stomach that has this happy buzz about it.
It makes me want to run, to leap, to splash.
So, I run, I leap, I splash.
My head tilted to the sky, the grey mass above me not doing anything to damper my mood.
I squeal as my toes hit the cold surface of the water, and shout with glee as the slight trickle of rain becomes incessant downpour.
Sometimes, I talk like a child, I think like a child, I act like a child.
Strange? No.
Because, usually it's under the influence of coffee.

i knew.

i knew what was happening before she did, i think.
i knew when her eyes lost their shine. her body became tired.
i knew when her doctor told us what she had.
i knew when i watched her body become but skin and bones.
i knew when her size 4 jeans became a size 0.
i knew when they told me she had 2 weeks to live.
i knew when i held her hand for the last time.
i knew when i told her i loved her and there was no response.
~
cancer tends to do that. it tends to take the one you love quickly, ruthlessly.
and it leaves you.
stranded.

Luckless

This scorching heat never ends.

Blisters on our skin.

Rashes on our faces.

We’re riding in some roofless bus.

Bouncing over a world of char.

It’s dead. Never to live again.

My platoon burned. Turned to ash before my eyes.

My brother. I couldn’t save him.

I failed.

So why am I still here?

No reason really.

Some luckless fate.

I grab a pistol. Point it at the medic’s head.

And in an instant, all the guns are trained on me

That’s right.

Let’s end this.

Shoot me friends.

Why tarry? Why carry on?

For me this world is

cold.

Ulciscere

And so it has come to this moment.

He stands with his back towards the surf. 

Stumbling as the waves buffet him. But he keeps his footing, for now.

I stand on the shore.

He can’t stay there forever.

All his years of running have finally brought him here. 

Trapped between the jaws of the hungry ocean, and the surety of my blade between his ribs.

I see the exhaustion in his gaunt face.

I watch as blood from his wounds seep into the ocean, carried away by the tide.

Is that salt spray or tears running down his face?