Wartime Wonders
Two Flags stared at one another. One’s chest heaved with heavy breaths, the other’s held in hesitant hope. The crumbling concrete pillars jutted from the city’s cratered pavement. Inflated and half-decomposed bodies spread out at irregular intervals, silent spectators to the orchestra of bullets and bombs, of flashes and flames, of prayers and damnations. There they were, the two Flags, as props set in a play. The Great Playwriter had set them only a body’s length apart. One stood. One lay. One had a gun in his hand, the other’s hand clutched at the jagged hole in his stomach. Blood leaked through my clenched fingers and pooled in my lap. While red did flatter roses at a funeral or women during a night out, I was not particularly pleased to be donned in its thick drapery. I eyed the boy impersonating Death. The gun was barely held still. It quivered in his hands. If walking was an option, I would stride up to him and spank him for good measure for playing soldier where the grow...