Wartime. A child shivers.
I walk past, eyes blank, belly empty. Keep enough to survive.
Peace comes. Meat. I eat it, ask for more. More. A bullet for desert. “Strange,” they say.
OR
I give up food. All food. Swallow only kindness and air.
The child inherits gratitude and survivor’s guilt.
OR
We share. No common language but compassion, which we speak to each other constantly. Hands stroke hair, cheeks as we die.
We pray: that God exists.
That God comes here: hunger, torment, friends’ death, his own.
That God will return to kill these goddamned warriors with His sword.
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This story has been part of Loren Eaton’s Advent Ghosts non-contest contest. Click through to see other creepy stories for the dead of the winter!
I like it. What would one choose? “We pray that God exists…”
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Oh my. That final line is quite the bitter paradox.
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BTW, you should totally play “This War of Mine” if you haven’t yet. It’s the videogame version of this story, and it hits just as hard.
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It is, but it rhymes as best as I can tell with the ending of both the Old Testament and the New.
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