A Bagful

The thought began with a carelessly placed bag of apples falling from the counter and rolling to all corners of the kitchen floor.  He then remembered months later finding two that had been lost in the space between the refrigerator and the wall, shriveled down to silver dollars.

She got so mad at him that day, and it was so damn stupid.  The entire time she knew she had smelled something off, but he said she was fool-crazy.

Why was this the memory that had started him crying?  Why, when there were so many others…

State of Mind

A bottle burst in the street and they both sprung up fast.  Her eyes screamed terror as he leapt from bed with a wooden bat in hand.  There was hesitation to even look, but he slowly made a space in the shut blinds.

“There’s nothing,” he said with moonlight sneaking in and hitting his face.

She could see he had not been sleeping either.  The stories people told on the ham radio of what was happening in other cities had them mad with thought.  Eventually, the tanks would arrive, and more than bottles would break.  

It Came As It Went

“Equal at last,” she said aloud, closing her eyes.

The law had passed that granted the rights of this group be no greater and no less than that group.  Together, they were free.  The euphoria that had swept the country swirled through her bedroom as she dreamed of the future.

Then she heard the crash.  Footsteps.  Pounding.  Yelling.  She looked out her window and saw police forcing her handcuffed neighbor into a car.  Another officer followed with a pile of books and a hard drive. 

Closing the blinds, she said in silence, “...at long last.”

Pictures of Suzanne

The sunlight dims, and the vagabond winds breathe calm over him. He sits alone listening to the leaves whisper and sips from a cold glass of beer, all the time thinking of his sister.

A flash of memory. Her smile. The picture on the mantle. Just shy a year, and already she’s not as clear as he always thought she’d be. A blue glow that stretches from over the outlying mountains gives way to the clear night’s sky. He stands overwhelmed in the now still air, glad to know he’ll always have pictures of Suzanne.

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."

No Toast for Charlie

Agitated with hunger, Charlie threw the first stone.  He couldn’t see where it hit, but knew the damage was done.  Another flew overhead, then another, and without regard the sea of people bent as a wave of violence.

But blood on the street would not rise another loaf of bread.  If only the workers on the “grub truck” hadn’t been disturbed by so many desperate eyes.  When they kept driving, Charlie knew that’d be it.  No more bread.  Nothing.  Because when it came to throwing stones, their leaders knew to throw the last.  Always.