You begin your journey at the place your roots were planted. Not by your own volition, but by the choices of your ancestors. You are fertilized by their love and watered by their affection. They protect you from creatures that may mean you harm. Your trunk begins to rise with nutrients from the soil your ancestors planted you in. Unknowingly predestining where your branches will seek sunlight from. Your ancestors teach you valuable lessons learned from their roots. Perhaps not seeing how different their soil was from the one you now reside. Your branches expand and your trunk ascends higher. Morals and ethics are bestowed upon you by the soil and creatures that surround your deepening roots. Yet as your trunk rises up and your branches even higher, you start to see other branches upon your horizon. Fuel from the creatures discarded and used, lessons disguised as foul excrement unwanted. Disgusting behavior and cruelty unwarranted, creates twisted roots sunken below. Your canopy grows many skills contained within your leaves. Branches forgotten grow beyond your control. Growth unguided has hindered the branches seeking the sun. Your ancestors gone no longer able to help, you follow the stars to find your golden path. Creatures surround you defenseless and alone. You lash out feeling fear and anger wanting only to be safe. Not knowing your ancestors should have guided your growth. Unprepared and afraid your growth becomes stunted. As creatures abuse you and rob you of your leaves, you become isolated and turn inward. You find solace in darkness and turning inward to find peace. Roots growing deep in soil unfamiliar, praying for water even salty shall do. Years pass unnoticed, many branches abandoned, roots have grown rotten while waiting for water and fertilizer that never comes. Your roots grow stronger from hatred and neglect, only to find new strength required to be transplanted. New soil has been found and your branches are pruned. New growth flows through you as though you’d never seen the sun. Your roots untwist and the rot sheds away. More branches sprout from your trunk in places you never imagined you’d have before. Leaves of warm colors shine brightly above. You must reach higher to see why they glow red hot. Trunk grown anew to heights previously unfathomable. Those same creatures below devouring one another while spewing the same bile they consume. Stuck in a cycle that blinds and maims. Guided by corrupt morals devoid of all ethics. Without ears, without eyes, how can they possibly learn? You avert your own eyes and feel only pity, no longer hatred nor contempt. Perhaps those embers above can save those sad creatures below. Finally within reach the heat overwhelming. Not mere embers, but great blazes that scorch all they touch. Your branches are full of old leaves that are brittle, ready to catch flame and become ash to enstill rebirth below. Pain and sorrow greet your branches without mercy, expecting resistance but finding the opposite. Willingly sacrificing leaves and branches alike, the ultimate pruning of oneself to lift even your roots to these pillars of flame. The process complete, decades spent in great service to something higher than your own. Worth every second to feel what you always craved from creatures and ancestors alike. Never knowing it was within your own grasp below your canopy all along.

He rounds the corner and sees crimson stains on the floor and wall. He presses on, despite his stomach enduring a roller coaster. He quickly finds more bloodshed, but it appears that the drops are getting smaller and less frequent. He quickens his pace, fearing the worst. Sometimes haste can lead to your downfall, he learns this the hard way. A quick pinch and searing pain light up his already tumultuous belly. As his mind recognizes what has happened his head slowly pans down to see not just his own fate, but also the source of the crimson trail, lying face down at his feet. Ignoring the searing flame igniting his intestines into pain he slowly bends down. He takes her dress and shoulder into his hand, afraid to confirm what he already knows. His beloved sister, is dead, and based on his blood loss he wouldn’t be far behind. “Together until the end” she’d always told him, thankfully she was no longer alive to share in his horrific irony.

Purple collar with a golden tag. Golden hair with white trim around the legs. A fluffy tail that droops, but never poofy. Quietly she sleeps at the end of the bed. Snuggled up with your feet enjoying your heat while sharing her own. Morning comes with breakfast to enjoy. We share a meal one last time. She steals your scraps while you stifle a yawn. No reason to be concerned anymore. You grab the leash and walk to the car. Ready to see her enjoy the ride she adores. Appointment to keep, but every reason to stall. One last walk before the warm dark. Slowly we stroll no more hurry to go. Searching and finding, every smell was revealed. Familiar they may have been, but always wanting more. Up the hill to the car at your side like she does. Licking your hand and giving you love. Park the car, close the door, one last hug and kiss for her nose. Always to be remembered the best friend you could hope for.

As the sun crests the eastern mountain it sparks life into the military academy below. The valley erupts with the customary bugles and trumpets the cadets have grown oh so familiar with. It has been seven months since Vira’s parents had begrudgingly sent her to the conscripted school of Galloway. Morning after morning she awoke to the blaring bugles, but it never got any easier this routine. Despite these many rude awakenings she still found herself slugging her way off the bed and onto the floor. She slowly picked herself off the floor and began making her bed, sheet flat, blanket tucked in over the sides and foot of the bed, pillow at the head of the bed with the blanket tucked around it. She basked in her speed, despite her nickname Slugger, for both the slug like flow of her movement and her right hook, she was the quickest to make her bed every morning. Again she wondered to herself “How can people move with such fervor yet still move so slowly?” As she started putting her slacks and shirt on she reflected upon what the commander had said yesterday, “Panic and hurry are the enemies of composure and efficiency” now she could see why the old man always droned on sounding more like a veteran philosopher than a veteran soldier. Hidden behind the rugged exterior and unflinching authority there was a man who had grown and learned what it would take to be successful in this world. His actions AND his words spoke for him, something few people did in this country, perhaps in the world as well.