Bomb Sky (short story)

      A quick look to the clouds and a quiver and I carry on and in my head I am just with my head my head and I carry it. The horizon seems closer than some days, but it hasn’t rained. Everyone is following me, silently, strange to be a leader.
      In the room where we are keeping him he has bright eyes and seems like a fighter and probably has a mother and oh well, what can be done, here we are today, who knows the tectonics that brought us here, I have never understood fully what makes us us and them them but I know that fear is real and I want those I love to have less fear even if then I cause fear on the others, who knows if they are good, I am sure they have a good conversation to share, a joke to tell; exhaustion is so overwhelming, the followers follow me, I carry on.
      “Listen, obviously we’re here and you feel superior because you are more powerful as a whatever, civilization, but I would ask you to think that, I’d ask you to think of today, this moment. I’m not your enemy, I don’t think we’re at war, I fight, but because you guys keep trying to drop bombs, and I kill people that try to kill me. I’ll kill you, and in all seriousness, I probably will, but I don’t really want to, not in the least, you look like a nice guy, I like the light in your eyes. Fuck,”
      I look down, he’s gagged, he wants to scream, stab me, I’m his enemy, fuck me, how do these guys care so much? Can’t we just co-exist? I get low in his face and smell him for a second and I can smell his fear; fear doesn’t mean he’ll break, probably the opposite, he knows he’s afraid, it gives him a guide stone, just fight fear and he meets god or whatever, he gets his prize. I’m so tired, so tired, he’s just a kid, what’s he doing here anywhere, why isn’t he at a barbecue?
      What do I do? He probably knows nothing about anything. This isn’t fun. My guys look at me. They get their houses bombed, this is the closest they get to sleeping well, thinking about their dead kids, they want something, it won’t make them happy, but they need to go through it to know it, even if they hate it it’s a type of closure.
      I look at the sky, when does the bomb drop? Is it today or next week. I’m so tired.
    “Listen, listen listen listen listen” I whisper in his ear, next to him, hot, he can smell me, I smell him, it’s like we’re lovers, we could be lovers, I’m in complete control, I put my hand on his face for justĀ  a second, just a second, he knows my power, I take a step back, “listen listen listen listen, listen” and I shoot him in the side of the head, point blank, but at an angle, so the bullet goes into the sand and all the others behind me look with big eyes knowing that this is what they asked from me and I say in my head a sad prayer and hope his mother thinks that there is a heaven and I stand up and say let bury him with dignity and I stand up ready to carry on my war.

 

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