Saturday, January 20, 2007

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She sat dazed and immobilized, absently wondering when she stopped feeling her body. Her eyes were fixed on a blank spot on the wall across the living room, staring through it, watching images from so long ago they seemed like yesterday.

His first steps...birthday parties...skinned knees...broken bones... She watched as he drove off in his first car...introduced his first "real" girlfriend...stood on the porch in his blue tux on prom night...his black robes on graduation day...

Fresh tears made new paths down her red, crusted cheeks.

The girl stopped short when she entered the room. Her heart fluttered when she saw her mother sitting on the couch. A plain white box open on the coffee table in front of her and her hands in her lap, holding something loosely. As the girl approached, her fluttering heart broke. Kneeling next to her mother, she laid her hand over the dog tags and blood stained picture. A family picnic from too many summers ago, she noticed. 'What an odd thing to carry with him.'

Her mother's skin was cold as ice. And she still hadn't moved. The girl wasn't sure she was even breathing. "It was here...on the table...when I came home." The sound startled the girl a bit, but she looked up slowly at her mother, who's eyes were still fixed on the wall. She nodded.

"They brought it just after lunch. Dad took it."

Her mother still sat motionless. As if she hadn't really just spoken at all. Pressing on, her daughter asked,

"Did you know what was in the box...before you opened it?"

The mother felt her lips begin to quiver, tried to take in a breath through a throat clamped shut with grief. The "yes" came out as a weak whimper...the nod became wracking sobs. Raising the picture and the tags to her chest she held close all that was left of her first born son. And she cried his name...cursed his fate...

Outside the window, a bird sang, and a dog barked at a passing car.

posted by Kimber at 12:03 AM :: ~#~

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