I awoke with a groan, already annoyed with the bright light creeping its way between the blinds, but too tired to do anything about it. With minimal effort, I slid my pillow over my face, trying to trick myself into believing it was still night.
Nancy Higgins from apartment 208 had intimidated me into joining her morning yoga class this morning. Of course, by “intimidated” I mean she asked me while we were in the elevator together and I had nowhere to escape. What’s a fitness guru like her taking an elevator for in the first place? She lives on the second floor!
Regardless, to say I didn’t want to go was a severe understatement, and honestly, an insult to my opposition of the idea.
With my pillow still covering my face, I laid my hands by my side, palms-up and wondered if a few extra minutes in bed didn’t already count as morning yoga? Then I wondered how insulted Nancy and her horde of grass-fed yogis would be if I suggested it did... The thought made me chuckle.
Lifting my arms over my head, I attempted a full-body stretch, but a phantom weight below my hips said shavasa-no to that.
I was vaguely aware of the lack of feeling in my legs. When I tried to move them, an explosion of static erupted from my toes. Thousands of pins and needless pricked relentlessly, all the way up to my shins.
“Ughhhhh, Bruno!”
The weight shifted and I propped myself up on my elbows, locking eyes with my Newfoundland. Despite my best attempt at a stern look, Bruno gazed dolefully back. My giant baby. He’s too cute for my own good...
“Scat, you big oaf,” I say, lovingly, trying to remove all 160 pounds of him off my numb legs. Reluctantly, he obliges, galumphing to the head of my bed and knocking me back down, heavy paws and head resting on my chest.
With a sigh, I settle under the weight and warmth of my “lapdog”. It looked like I wouldn’t be making it to yoga this morning. Bruno wanted to sleep, and who was I to stop him?
Ronnie pressed her back to the door, closing out the chaos that lay beyond, and slid to the bathroom floor. A fresh chorus of screaming wails erupted down the hall and Ronnie touched her head to her knees. It was Rick’s turn to handle... whatever it was that was going on out there. She just needed like one minute to herself.
What had they been thinking? They weren’t ready to be parents! Ronnie still had a hard time accepting that she was an adult and she was only three months shy of thirty. How did her mother do this at twenty-four?
They should have given it more thought. Talked about it more. But at the time, Ronnie hadn’t seen it as something that needed thought. She just accepted it as what they needed to do.
Rick hadn’t spoken to his sister in nearly a decade, but it didn’t come as much surprise to learn she had been deemed unfit to care for her daughter.
By the time Rick got off the phone with the social worker, Ronnie was already working through the anxiety of becoming an unexpected parent. There didn’t need to be a discussion. Sienna needed to be with family, not sent of to foster care, not when Rick and Ronnie could step up.
They were going to be parents...
That’s not to say they took this lightly. Ronnie knew how hard it was to raise a child. She had gratefully sat on the sidelines and watched her sister raise theirs, happy to have the freedom to sleep in and not worry about getting peed on. Now, she sat with spit-up stains on her leggings and.... what is that? Is that a soggy cheerio in her hair?
Another wail sounded and Ronnie joined in with a tired whimper.
“Ron! I need another pair of hands here.”
Sighing, she used the vanity to help herself up; her one minute was up.
As she walked down the hall, she asked what she asked herself at least 1,000 times a day: Had they made a terrible mistake? Would Sienna have been better off with another family? A family who knew what the hell they were doing?
When she stepped into the living room, she found Rick holding their niece, doing that desperate little bounce that all parents do as they try to soothe a crying baby. His eyes were round and pleading. But instead of the wave of anxiety that usually washed over her when she felt overwhelmed, Ronnie smiled. She had no idea how to be a parent, but who really does? As long as you keep trying, you’ll figure it out along the way.
She crossed the living room and took Sienna from Rick’s arms so he could run and make a bottle.
Red cheeks, wet eyes, and a nose dripping with snot, Sienna settled slightly. Her wailing stopped as she stared up at Ronnie’s sparkling earrings. She sniffed and hiccuped and Ronnie chuckled.
Lowering her head to Sienna’s, Ronnie touched her nose with her own. “You’re going to drive me crazy, little one,” she said quietly.
A large smile broke across the baby’s face and she laughed in that cute, Gerber baby way, that has the power to melt hearts in an instant.
“Oh? Well, I’m glad you find that amusing.”
This was going to be hard. Really, freaking hard. But they would get through it, and all Ronnie could do was hope that Sienna would be better for it.
“So Eden sank to grief, So dawn goes down to day Nothing gold can stay”
When Innocence was so Lost in the Garden of Eden The sun of youth sank Below the horizon of hope to A sky draped in grief
A future so Uncertain cannot promise dawn Yet so it goes Onward and upward and down In search of something to Give meaning to the day
And if it comes to nothing The sun’s gold Light can Fade but let innocence stay
Lana lives in a world of romance. Through her work as a bridal consultant, she has met countless brides and heard their tales of love. When she runs into the man of her dreams, she thinks it’s finally her turn to fall in love. But sometimes in the big city, you just end up falling and can only hope that there’s someone waiting to help you back on your feet.
He was like the desert. Not in the romantic colors of flaming sunsets, but in the bleached skies of high noon. His was not golden-sand skin, but worn leather, smooth and creased. His lips were dry and cracked like the parched earth beneath his feet.
He wore the day like a cloak, his shoulders hunched with the familiar weight of its heat, wrapped in the coarse fibers of windswept sand. At night, he settled, as the silken cool of darkness embraced the landscape.
Yet he was unyielding, firm and steady, unlike the shifting hills he treaded. He was stubborn, and resolute. He was like the mountain.
The melody holds me gently and guides my lids to close. Whispered chords invite me to be still, and I comply, welcomed to a world of introspection.
Through painted measures of confusion and contradiction comes beauty. Haunting, tired, lost, and yet — hopeful. Single notes create sense among the chaos of sound as absolution quiets the chaos within.
When lovers hearts are pierced by Cupid’s arrow, Then does life‘s sweetness breathe anew. Trust flows through the body and hope warms the soul; But this is not so with you
Your love is like an arrow laced with poison Its venom spreading through my veins Slowly eroding my worth, my dignity Leaving only doubt and pain
Heat tore through his thigh, ripping a pained shout from his lips. Phillips gasped as he hit the ground, the grit of earth and gunpowder filling his mouth.
He reached down and felt for the damage of the musket rifle, the deadly bombardment still thundering around him. His leg was already drenched in blood - his own and that of his fellow soldiers, whose lives had spilled out and turned the battlefield to mud.
A shell crashed somewhere behind him in an explosion of fire and screams. Phillips threw his hands over his head; feeble protection against the earth now raining down from the heavens.
There was no moving forward. He was too close to the enemy lines, rapid fire and a useless leg pinning him to the ground.
Phillips glanced up, expecting to find the point of a bayonet before him, but then his eye caught something bright. Through the haze of war, he could see it, tattered and trampled, yet still shining like rubies and sapphires in the September sun: the nation’s colors. There was the visual representation of all they believed in, the flying reminder of what they fought for.
It had fallen with the Color Guard among the first volleys of the battle - assumed to be captured, yet there it was, some twenty yards from enemy lines.
More canon fire erupted from both sides, breaking earth and limb. A hot, angry wind lashed out from the impact, striking indiscriminately with shrapnel at those lucky enough to have avoided the initial shells. A red stripe from the flag lifted itself in the unnatural breeze, reaching out like a hand searching for a savior. It beaconed him.
There was his hope. Hope for a better future, hope for a unified country, hope that he might survive. The flag had fallen, but it was still theirs.
Phillips braced himself, gritting is teeth against the pain as he pressed away from the soiled earth. He took one, staggering step forward, and then another, his body hunched low and his leg dragging.
Bullets flew so quickly past him, filling the air with the sounds of a million bees, as they landed fatal stings on their targets. Phillips forced himself to move faster but slipped in the blood-soaked mud.
Someone let out a scream cut short by a wet gurgle. But Phillips marched on, eyes focused on the beaconing red fabric. He took a careful step over an unmoving body.
Another shell landed ahead of him, beyond the fallen colors. He hurried to use the friendly fire as cover. Then another explosion, more dust, more cover, and more shrapnel. A hard blow to the shoulder spun him, throwing him to the ground. This time he wasn’t sure what had torn through his flesh, but the pain was blurring his vision.
He let out a scream as he forced himself to stand; it was a guttural scream, a battle cry. He pushed onward, each yard a truth for his survival, until he fell upon the flag.
The fabric was torn, like his body; spilled out upon the earth like red blood on the battlefield; ashen-white like the death gazes of lifeless soldiers; soaked in mud like the indistinguishable blue of his uniform. But it was still theirs, and he was still alive.
Phillips pushed away the body of a fallen Color Guard and gripped the splintered wood of the pole. Another scream escaped as he hefted the weight of the flag. Then, there was another scream, from somewhere among his men, then another. Not the death cries of injured men, but the rallying call of soldiers.
As Phillips lifted the flag, he raised his men’s determination. The colors flew once more, the battle raged on, and that meant there was hope.
**Loosely inspired by Charles Tanner’s recount of his experience at the Battle of Antietam.
The pain in my knee was excruciating, a throbbing declaration that I would not be getting up from where I collapsed, let alone make it out of the lab. I tried not to look at the awkward angle at which my leg limply rested. Sam knelt over me, her hands moving skillfully over my knee as she assessed the damage. Red and white lights flashed in alarm around us, illuminating the bruises blotching Sam’s face.
I couldn’t let her get caught.
Sam was the only source of intel we had on the BioDrone Project. A high-ranking officer on the security force, she was our eyes and ears inside Romclov Laboratories; and recently, she had become my world.
“You have to go,” I said, biting back the pain. “Loop back so they don’t suspect you were in the area.”
She shook her head, still fussing over my twisted knee. “You can’t walk on your own. If I leave, you’ll be captured.” Her voice was even, calm, but I could sense the panic building at the edges.
“And if you’re caught, you’ll be killed.” I gripped her arm. “I have information; they’re not going to kill me. At least not right away. When I don’t show up to the rendezvous point, Magnus will know we’ve been compromised, he’ll figure out a way to get me out but he’ll need you.”
Shouts and the sound of running footsteps echoed in the sterile halls, stealing Sam’s attention.
“Look at me.” I touched my hand to her cheek, gently coaxing her gaze away from the approaching threat. “If you won’t leave, then you have to turn me in.”
Her jaw tensed as she thought over my words. “I can convince them that you’re an asset.” I nodded, glad that she understood. “But once you’re handed over, they’ll take you off site, I won’t be able to watch over you.”
I moved my hand to her waist. “I don’t need you to watch over me, I need you to stay alive.”
“I’ll call them over, tell them I found you here collapsed...” Sam started, but I shook my head, my hand moving to her hip.
“We have to make it convincing: you confronted me, we fought,” I slipped Sam’s Bowie knife from her belt and pressed the handle into her palm, pointing the blade to my abdomen, “and you took me down.”
“No.” The word was hard and final.
“Sam, you can’t see yourself,” I said, trying not to show my pain and urgency. Her lip was bleeding, a bruise coloring her cheek from our failed extraction. I slid my hand up slightly to encircle her wrist, and guided it, positioning the blade just below my rib cage, praying that it was close enough to midline to miss my lung. “They need to believe you took me down.”
I knew she was still trying to think up another way out of this situation, I also knew that there wasn’t one. We had messed up, miscalculated, and Magnus needed to know. We couldn’t leave him to speculate what had happened, Sam needed to report back to him. She knew that, which is why her hand didn’t shake when she gripped the knife more tightly.
She stared at me for a moment, then plunged the knife into my stomach.
The force stole my breath more than the pain. I gasped, my body convulsing slightly as Sam carefully pulled out her knife. She took my hand, placing it over the wound and applying pressure, before standing.
My vision blurred alarmingly fast. I blinked, trying to focus on her. She was shouting, calling for back up and someone from the med staff. More shadows appeared in the red and white strobes, swarming me. Their voices were muddled by the wailing alarm as if my head was submerged in water. But I could hear Sam, her commanding voice still shouting orders to have “the intruder” taken to the medical unit and patched up for questioning.
Hands gripped my arms, turned me, pushed my face to the floor. Wet heat spread along my midsection, making the floor slick. Someone was restraining me, though I thought that was unnecessary given my current state. My breathing was already growing shallower.
I strained my neck to look through the crowd of bodies but Sam was no longer among them.
‘Good,’ I thought as the world darkened around me. ‘Good.’
