blowback

He awoke amidst rubble and settling dust.  Skin ripped.  Body bruised.  If only he could focus his eyes he would find his father just feet away with a shattered skull seeping a dark mess onto the dirt.  He'd never see his mother again.  She lay already buried in a building collapsed from the strike.  It was their home.

The boy pushed himself from the ground and looked up.  The attack came from the sky.  He struggled to focus his eyes, but could not.  He could only spit out one word, over and over again. 

"America."