The ashes fell like snow.
Daniel stood on the edge of the crater where the heart of the city had once stood. Shattered shells of buildings teetered on the edge of the crater, ready to fall a thousand feet to the bottom. Every few seconds a piece of debris would fall, twirling crazily, catching the last few rays of the failing light as it arced into the eternity below.
It was not cold, yet a shiver ran down his spine. He had wrought this, his order had launched the weapon, and the weight of responsibility sat squarely on his shoulder.
Never before had he seen destruction on such a scale. Here, up close to the blast site, all the biological had been utterly obliterated, so he was spared the sight of the waves of bodies that could be found further out, but the gaping hole in the city and earth seemed to be an almost worse wound.
His head turned slightly at the scrabbling sound of one of his junior lieutenants approaching.
“General Mattis sends his regards sir, and requests you take a look at these reports.” The Lieutenant looked young, but after three days of clean up evaluation his eyes were timeless orbs.
Daniel took the papers and glanced over them. “They’re surrendering.” He glanced over at the crater. “Took them long enough.”
“I guess the Kaigani have difficulty accepting the concept of peace through superior firepower, sir.”
“I guess they do. You know, the eggheads told me there was a one in five chance that this particular device might set the atmosphere on fire.”
The Lieutenant showed little emotion at this, the possibility that Daniels order would have killed him and everyone else on the planet.
Neither of them said anything for a while.
“Sir, If I may speak candidly?” What Daniel had taken for nonemotion was really time to consider a response.
“By all means.”
“I work in operations planning. I saw the numbers. We would have lost more than 4 million men taking this city alone. I’m not talking countries or provinces, I’m talking cities. The Kaigani lost eight million here, and another six at Golan. I don’t know how many we’d have lost taking the entire nation. I know for a fact that using conventional tactics we would have had to kill every single Kaigani. Our best estimates put that at well over 50 million. Sir, we’d have still been fighting for another seven years. We have been fighting for ten. I grew up in this war. And sir, I’m so damn tired of fighting it.”
His eyes shone with the tears of a man freed from a great burden.
“Whatever history calls you for this, I know that to me, to my wife, to my children, to my mother and father, you will always be a hero for ending this. It wasn’t clean, it wasn’t right, it wasn’t humane or even honorable, but it was the knockout punch. My father once told me, ‘It’s not the guy who fights fair that survives; it’s the guy who wins.’ We won sir, and it’s not like we had any other option.”
Daniel was silent for a long time, staring into the crater that was the end of this chapter of humanity. Finally, he spoke. “Thank you, son. Give General Mattis my regards; I’m going to be here a little while. Tell him to accept their surrender, and to prepare a more formal ceremony. I think their capital building should suit the bill nicely.”
“Yes sir.” The Lieutenant was all business now; he clambered away through the surrounding debris.
The flecks of ash were beginning to cover up the damage, soften the sharp edges, blur the harsh lines of destruction.
“I do believe we’ll have to put a new city here.” Daniel murmured. “Fill in this crater. Make it a lake. Put a shrine in the middle… After the hurt comes the healing.”
He knelt down, and the destroyer of the city, who was an architect by schooling, used a piece of concrete slab and a burned chunk of wood to sketch the first outlines of Irenasgrad.
Peace city.
"Peace can mean the sight of children at play in a park. Or it can mean the absolute, perfect silence that follows a gunshot."
-Doug
Wednesday, September 16, 2009
adults?: Meghan
Yes I’m writing about us, using us as characters. I normally hate doing that, but I had this idea and couldn’t pass it up. I warn you, the selves I create will probably not act like you. It is for my entertainment…so it will act sort of like you.
“How long has it been?”
“Forever.”
“Where have you been, what have you been doing?”
“Well you know…”
The happy chatter of friends meeting again swelled in the restaurant. It had been years since all of them had been together like this, years of experience, love, and loss that had changed all of them.
I balanced a tray of sweets and tea in one hand and silverware in the other as I made my way over to them. A hand reached to lift my burden and I smiled at Abe, the smile turning into a frown as I watched him take a bite of my cake.
“Hey!”
“It’s my payment.”
I shrugged, at least he hadn’t eaten the whole thing. I took a huge bite out of the remainder and closed my eyes in joy at the sugar rush. After running around as a hospital slave all day it was heaven.
“Wow, I didn’t know sugar could pleasure people that much.”
I rolled my eyes at the grinning Doug, still in his fatigues and fresh from overseas. We all bore imprints of our jobs and our lives in our appearances. Doug didn’t need the outfit for his look to scream military. The haircut, the demeaner, even the way he stood said it all. I wondered if the way I forked my food was telling my friends things about me that I didn’t know, if I had soaked up some of what I was working so hard at. I hoped so, it just seemed like every day I was running around like a chicken with its head cut off.
“Serious thoughts?” Jasmine asked as her fork snaked stealthily towards my plate. She was in her black scrubs and tiny metal skulls dangled from her earlobes. She loved them because they pissed her boss off to no end, who was forever giving the staff ‘sensitivity training’ and padded around words like ‘corpse’, ‘dead’, and ‘rotting maggoty meat sacks’. It had something to do with being sued and almost fired, which made sense, but the man was making life miserable for those around him.
I growled and blocked her intruding fork, then pondered the question during the utensil battle that ensued.
“It’s like we’ve all become our jobs.” I said frowning, “We haven’t seen each other in forever and all we can say is, ‘Yeah and then I accidentally severed the artery on the wall of the…’ It seems kind of…sad.”
“And then we’ll have babies, and all we’ll talk about is the babies. And then we’ll be old, and all we’ll talk about is the past. And then we’ll die, and—“
“You are so depressing.”
“I love you too.”
I grinned and turned back to the group and an empty plate. I glared at the plate, then glared around the table. I went from serious face to serious face and just decided that Abe had done it, since he had already marked it with the first bite.
“Cake?”
“Would you like me to throw it back up for you?”
“Gah, no keep it in there. When did you take it? I didn’t even notice.”
“So great are my ninja powers that you cannot even possibly comprehend how I could take your cake.”
Abe was something of a mystery, given that he wouldn’t tell anyone where he had been or what he had been doing for the past few years. His job was of the implied but not talked about kind; Doug probably knew, but he was the only one.
So with a sigh, I bid farewell to my cake and started eating Doug’s.
He had opened his mouth to protest but Abe and Sarah’s voices carried over and stopped whatever he had been about to say.
“Abe, I can’t.” Sarah said sharply
“Come on, it’s only this once. When else are we going to have a chance?”
“No. Besides, my clothes will get completely ripped off.”
She looked forlornly down at her neatly tailored business suit.
“So change clothes, come on, it’ll be fun.”
Jasmine, Doug and I were all staring at them, Doug was the one who spoke first.
“You two are either about to do something that is a very bad idea or…no. I can’t really think of anything else your words could mean.”
Abe grinned wickedly at him, “Remember that game we used to play?”
Doug got an equally evil smile on his face, “Laptag?”
Uh oh. I had a bad feeling about this.
“Can you call—“
“Yeah, how about—“
A very bad feeling.
-M
“How long has it been?”
“Forever.”
“Where have you been, what have you been doing?”
“Well you know…”
The happy chatter of friends meeting again swelled in the restaurant. It had been years since all of them had been together like this, years of experience, love, and loss that had changed all of them.
I balanced a tray of sweets and tea in one hand and silverware in the other as I made my way over to them. A hand reached to lift my burden and I smiled at Abe, the smile turning into a frown as I watched him take a bite of my cake.
“Hey!”
“It’s my payment.”
I shrugged, at least he hadn’t eaten the whole thing. I took a huge bite out of the remainder and closed my eyes in joy at the sugar rush. After running around as a hospital slave all day it was heaven.
“Wow, I didn’t know sugar could pleasure people that much.”
I rolled my eyes at the grinning Doug, still in his fatigues and fresh from overseas. We all bore imprints of our jobs and our lives in our appearances. Doug didn’t need the outfit for his look to scream military. The haircut, the demeaner, even the way he stood said it all. I wondered if the way I forked my food was telling my friends things about me that I didn’t know, if I had soaked up some of what I was working so hard at. I hoped so, it just seemed like every day I was running around like a chicken with its head cut off.
“Serious thoughts?” Jasmine asked as her fork snaked stealthily towards my plate. She was in her black scrubs and tiny metal skulls dangled from her earlobes. She loved them because they pissed her boss off to no end, who was forever giving the staff ‘sensitivity training’ and padded around words like ‘corpse’, ‘dead’, and ‘rotting maggoty meat sacks’. It had something to do with being sued and almost fired, which made sense, but the man was making life miserable for those around him.
I growled and blocked her intruding fork, then pondered the question during the utensil battle that ensued.
“It’s like we’ve all become our jobs.” I said frowning, “We haven’t seen each other in forever and all we can say is, ‘Yeah and then I accidentally severed the artery on the wall of the…’ It seems kind of…sad.”
“And then we’ll have babies, and all we’ll talk about is the babies. And then we’ll be old, and all we’ll talk about is the past. And then we’ll die, and—“
“You are so depressing.”
“I love you too.”
I grinned and turned back to the group and an empty plate. I glared at the plate, then glared around the table. I went from serious face to serious face and just decided that Abe had done it, since he had already marked it with the first bite.
“Cake?”
“Would you like me to throw it back up for you?”
“Gah, no keep it in there. When did you take it? I didn’t even notice.”
“So great are my ninja powers that you cannot even possibly comprehend how I could take your cake.”
Abe was something of a mystery, given that he wouldn’t tell anyone where he had been or what he had been doing for the past few years. His job was of the implied but not talked about kind; Doug probably knew, but he was the only one.
So with a sigh, I bid farewell to my cake and started eating Doug’s.
He had opened his mouth to protest but Abe and Sarah’s voices carried over and stopped whatever he had been about to say.
“Abe, I can’t.” Sarah said sharply
“Come on, it’s only this once. When else are we going to have a chance?”
“No. Besides, my clothes will get completely ripped off.”
She looked forlornly down at her neatly tailored business suit.
“So change clothes, come on, it’ll be fun.”
Jasmine, Doug and I were all staring at them, Doug was the one who spoke first.
“You two are either about to do something that is a very bad idea or…no. I can’t really think of anything else your words could mean.”
Abe grinned wickedly at him, “Remember that game we used to play?”
Doug got an equally evil smile on his face, “Laptag?”
Uh oh. I had a bad feeling about this.
“Can you call—“
“Yeah, how about—“
A very bad feeling.
-M
Wednesday, September 9, 2009
Doug: I dream of steel.
The acrid smell of spent ammunition is like a drug to me. Gunpowder and primer is like my version of heroin. Every detail is sharpened. I hear the metallic clink of brass hitting the floor. I can feel the thumping vibrations of displaced air. The smooth feeling of the shell casings in my hand, waiting to be loaded into the magazine.
All of these things are vivid in my memory, all of these details I can remember so well.
Snick, as the rounds are loaded into the magazine. SCHWANG! As the bolt drives a round home. A soft click as the safety catch is flipped off. Up to the shoulder goes the stock, tight in and comfortable. My finger, extended to the side, parallel to the trigger, is now brought down to caress it oh so gently.
Squeeze, don’t pull.
THWACK! THWACK! THWACK!
It almost sounds like when the batter hits a solid home run straight out of the ball park. The recoil is joy to my arm, letting me know my little bundle of lead is safely on its way. I glory in the arc of the falling shells, the fresh smell of burning powder assailing my nostrils, the home run sounds.
After, there is a slight ringing in my ears, then absolute, perfect, silence.
"Peace? I love peace, I'd be out of a job if there was peace."
-Tony Stark
"Iron Man"
All of these things are vivid in my memory, all of these details I can remember so well.
Snick, as the rounds are loaded into the magazine. SCHWANG! As the bolt drives a round home. A soft click as the safety catch is flipped off. Up to the shoulder goes the stock, tight in and comfortable. My finger, extended to the side, parallel to the trigger, is now brought down to caress it oh so gently.
Squeeze, don’t pull.
THWACK! THWACK! THWACK!
It almost sounds like when the batter hits a solid home run straight out of the ball park. The recoil is joy to my arm, letting me know my little bundle of lead is safely on its way. I glory in the arc of the falling shells, the fresh smell of burning powder assailing my nostrils, the home run sounds.
After, there is a slight ringing in my ears, then absolute, perfect, silence.
"Peace? I love peace, I'd be out of a job if there was peace."
-Tony Stark
"Iron Man"
Sunday, September 6, 2009
Sarah: Let Dreams Be Real
Would you like tea or coffee while you decide what to paint, Lily?
She used her right arm to tuck her long brown hair behind her right ear. She smiled softly not knowing what to say. This isn’t her place. It isn’t her place to make the decision. It is her friend’s responsibility. Or it was. That was before she, before she, became no longer capable.
Tea, please. Meghan’s going to wake up today.
Lily, replied. The parents, those caring people that didn’t know their daughter at all, were visiting with the doctors. They had given up. Lily wondered – did they really care about her? Meghan had been doing better. She screamed in her sleep at night. She held her belly sometimes. She shook her head.
We sure hope so.
Lily had been at the Neuropsychiatric Institution in Utah for a long time. It was her home. Locked into a wheelchair, not able to walk since the day she entered the Institution all bandaged from the “accident,” she stared at the woman.
Yes, yes we do.
And she continued to paint. She painted with her tears of a world where she knew how to walk. A world where her and Meghan traveled, laughed, and smiled. A world where that nice, tall boy that kissed the young blonde doctor, held Meghan’s hand too. A world where the afflicted caretaker had no worries, except getting whooped at chess by a woman that made him not only smile, but glow. She painted herself in the picture, in the corner, not alone but instead a part of everyone she loved. She held a hummingbird in her hand. He loved her. Then she finished the painting, closed her eyes, and prayed.
And Meghan woke up.
She used her right arm to tuck her long brown hair behind her right ear. She smiled softly not knowing what to say. This isn’t her place. It isn’t her place to make the decision. It is her friend’s responsibility. Or it was. That was before she, before she, became no longer capable.
Tea, please. Meghan’s going to wake up today.
Lily, replied. The parents, those caring people that didn’t know their daughter at all, were visiting with the doctors. They had given up. Lily wondered – did they really care about her? Meghan had been doing better. She screamed in her sleep at night. She held her belly sometimes. She shook her head.
We sure hope so.
Lily had been at the Neuropsychiatric Institution in Utah for a long time. It was her home. Locked into a wheelchair, not able to walk since the day she entered the Institution all bandaged from the “accident,” she stared at the woman.
Yes, yes we do.
And she continued to paint. She painted with her tears of a world where she knew how to walk. A world where her and Meghan traveled, laughed, and smiled. A world where that nice, tall boy that kissed the young blonde doctor, held Meghan’s hand too. A world where the afflicted caretaker had no worries, except getting whooped at chess by a woman that made him not only smile, but glow. She painted herself in the picture, in the corner, not alone but instead a part of everyone she loved. She held a hummingbird in her hand. He loved her. Then she finished the painting, closed her eyes, and prayed.
And Meghan woke up.
Meghan: Perfect
One month to go
She absently stroked her stomach, trying to massage away the internal prodding that had become an almost constant pain in the last few weeks. To distract herself she picked up one of the magazines that littered the waiting room and tried to let the smiling pictures of babies and mothers calm her. It was all going smoothly, perfect according to the doctors, but she couldn’t shake the feeling that something had gone horribly wrong. She hadn’t even…and the pain—
“Ms. Michaels?”
She jerked at the soothing voice of the nurse and her stomach jerked with her. Wincing, she put down the magazine and rose unsteadily to waddle through the door that the nurse held politely open for her.
Her feet swung from the padded bench where she sat, vulnerable in her hospital gown. The doctor felt her stomach gently, asking her about her pains and if there were any other major problems. She lay back and he absently spread cold gel on her belly for another ultrasound, staring intently at the machines hooked up to her.
“Have you been taking the vitamins?”
She sighed, “Yes, all of the vitamins, the exercises, the foods, I’ve been doing them all. Why does it still hurt?”
His eyes looked slightly glazed as he stared at the ultrasound screen, “…just fine.” He said absently, “you’re doing just fine. Perfect development.”
“Can I see it?”
“Yes, of course.” He pushed some keys on the device and turned the screen so she could look, “There, perfectly normal.”
She was suspicious of anyone who used the word ‘perfect’ so often.
Two weeks to go.
But it was too early; would the baby be all right?
The baby would be fine; she was assured, just…
Perfect
She screamed at the ceiling and dug her fingernails into the arm of the orderly who stood at her side. It was splitting her, God the pain. But this would be the end, right? She would have her child and the pain would end, replaced with soft things like the baby’s laugh and the smell of its skin. If she could just hold on.
Crying? She wept with relief at the sounds of raging protest that her child made at being brought out into the world. With little hiccupping laughs, she watched the nurses clean the baby off and wrap her in a pink blanket.
“A girl?” she breathed, “Perfect, she’s perfect, please give her to me.” She held out her arms as the doctor took the bundled thing from the nurses and stood at the foot of the bed.
“Please give me my daughter.”
“Daughter?”
“Yes, give her to—“
“You have no daughter.”
Whatever she had been about to say died at her lips and she just stared at him, trying to process what he had said.
“You—you—what?”
“You have no children.” He enunciated carefully, as if she were slow, “You came to the clinic with severe abdominal pain and we found a tumor in your pancreas. Luckily it was small and removable; you’ll be able to live out a long healthy life.”
Her jaw clenched, “No. There was no cancer; I…give her to me.”
“Her?” He stroked the head of the baby in his arms and her mother’s fists clenched weakly in the blankets, “She was born yesterday, a ward of the state now, as her mother died in childbirth. I thought I’d bring her to see you, cheer you up, but I can see that it’s upsetting you.” He motioned a nurse over and handed the infant over, her mother’s eyes tracking her desperately as she was taken from the room.
“No! You can’t, bring her back, she’s mine!”
“Please don’t be unreasonable Ms. Michaels,” The doctor said evenly as he walked around to sit by the side of her bed.
“Unreasonable?! You take my child from me and call me unreasonable?”
He flipped through a folder that he had picked up like he couldn’t hear her.
Gritting her teeth, she ripped the I.V tube from her arm and tried to struggle out from beneath the blankets and off of the bed.
“I wouldn’t do that if I were you.” The doctor said without looking up from the reports he was scanning, “You’re incredibly weak and have lost a lot of blood. If you’ll just sit back we can discuss what’s to be done.”
“Done?” She paused in her pathetic attempts to escape her bed and stared suspiciously at the man, “About my—“
“Financial situation.”
She choked on the sentence and stared in confusion at the doctor, “You—“
“Before you get upset, I want you to know that this hospital will not refuse you service just because of your…upsetting lack of health insurance.”
She just stared at him. She knew how bad it was, how bad it looked. Getting pregnant out of the blue had at first seemed to throw her life even deeper into its hurricane of destruction. But she would get better. She would make it better for this other person who hadn’t experienced anything bad yet. It had been hard to find a job, what with her growing belly and terrible record. But she had found one, then two, then three until she hardly stopped moving except to eat and sleep. But that little bundle of cash that she saved was growing, and the little room where the baby would sleep eventually got a crib, stuffed toys, and tiny clothes. She painted the walls with beautiful oceans and savannas, wanting the child to see more beauty than was here.
And now the doctor was telling her that there was no baby, there was just a tumor.
“However, the Department is willing to offer you a deal.”
“A deal?”
“The type of cancer that you contracted is very new and a lot of research is being done with it.”
She narrowed her eyes, cancer meaning child?
“We’re willing to offer you a significant sum if you’ll allow us to study the tissues that we took from you; many scientific advances may be possible from studying such a rare disease.”
She crossed her arms over her chest, “You even have to ask? No way in Hell. Give her back.”
The doctor sighed, “You understand that giving the samples back to you isn’t an option. They have already been processed and to allow an unlicensed civilian to take them away would be…dangerous.” He met her eyes in a blank stare, “If you don’t agree to let the samples be researched, they will simply be disposed of.”
A chill ricocheted from her heart to her stomach. Disposed of? No they wouldn’t…probably. But was probably enough of a chance? No, she would never risk it, and they would never give her back her child voluntarily.
“You have my permission to use my…samples.” She said through clenched lips.
“Excellent,” The doctor said briskly, “Now if you could just sign these forms…” He passed her some papers from his folder and indicated where she was to sign away her soul. And she signed. But no matter what forms were signed, and what words said, she knew that she would be back, and heaven help anyone who kept her daughter from her.
-Meghan
Friday, September 4, 2009
Jasmine: Curious
I’m always curious what people think when i come to class scratched and bruised. Do they think I have an abusive boyfriend? Abusive father/brother figures? Do they think I’m one of “those” kids? Always in trouble, gangs, drugs, and violence. When really I’m just the violence, and not very careful about it. But I think the stories that they spin inside their minds would be interesting to listen in on for a little while. Anything becomes boring if you can’t get away from it.
Jasmine: Compulsive Liars
Compulsive liars are interesting. A woman called in a couple days ago at work, I think her name was Bernadette something or another. Or it could be something entirely different. Little back history on Bernie. In the past two years she’s made three large claims, the last one was finally denied and her policy was canceled, or terminated, or something. The claims all seemed to be cumulative, some kind o f roof leakage for the first one, wind damage to the roof for the second, and some six grand of water damage caused by a roof leak for the final and denied one. Something tells me ole Bernie didn’t get her roof fixed with the first two claims.
The other far more experienced/better trained assistant secretary person got her call and was taking notes about Bernie’s life:
- Mom’s a doctor
- Dad’s a doctor
- Bernie’s also a doctor
- Mom won 240 million dollar lottery
- Mom died
- Mom put money in a trust for her that she can’t access when she wants because mom doesn’t trust her husband.
- Dad’s in Bahamas so she can’t get to the money that way
- She was also left a flat in new York that they are trying to sell
- Currently lives in a small house in los lunas
-
The other secretary found this highly entertaining and shared it with the rest of the office. I share it here with you.
Here’s a Sarah Buterblog style question: What do you guys think about compulsive liars? I’ve met quite a few bad ones in my life, but even every day friends will over spin a tale to make themselves seem more important, more amazing.
The other far more experienced/better trained assistant secretary person got her call and was taking notes about Bernie’s life:
- Mom’s a doctor
- Dad’s a doctor
- Bernie’s also a doctor
- Mom won 240 million dollar lottery
- Mom died
- Mom put money in a trust for her that she can’t access when she wants because mom doesn’t trust her husband.
- Dad’s in Bahamas so she can’t get to the money that way
- She was also left a flat in new York that they are trying to sell
- Currently lives in a small house in los lunas
-
The other secretary found this highly entertaining and shared it with the rest of the office. I share it here with you.
Here’s a Sarah Buterblog style question: What do you guys think about compulsive liars? I’ve met quite a few bad ones in my life, but even every day friends will over spin a tale to make themselves seem more important, more amazing.
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