I was looking through this file where i keep all my stories, and i chanced upon this one that i wrote for kay, about a year ago. it's about having everything happen to you at once, about happiness mingling with tears, about that having that funny feeling in your stomach when someone holds your hand, and about losing all feeling. It's about having no one to turn to but yourself.

oh. valentines day is coming. i want flowers! no actually i want money, but flowers would do nicely too :)

cheers,
Kenneth

Loss

The fires may go on forever. Or they may fade with time, to become distant, fleeting images in the mind that I can forget if I try hard enough. The screams may go on forever, the desperate shouts that tear into the fabric of my heart like knife into butter, gripping me with pure, blind terror. Or they too, may dissolve and dissipate into the wind, finally ceasing to haunt me in my dreams.

But they would not go quietly, no.

We must have done something really evil for them to drop the Bombs at us like that. Three at a time, the explosions would shake the land, then fill the air with a horrible and strangely mesmerizing haze, of concrete and smoke and bones and tears and blood and shattered dreams. Pater would shake his fists at the Bombs, then shake his head and sigh, "An eye for an eye. A tooth for a tooth. A bomb for a bomb." Pater is gone now, his soul thrown into the unfeeling wind like those of so many others.

Like those of Sam, who would sit quietly on Pater's old swing, his beautiful legs dangling next to mine as we each fought the urge to speak. His skin would occasionally brush against mine, sending waves of childish happiness coursing through my veins. Yesterday morning he told me that I had beautiful eyes. I had run away from him giggling, my face hot and flushed with love and pride and months of pent up emotions. Today his cold grey feet can be seen peeking out from his mother's crumbling house, flattened overnight.

I stand beside the old swing, marvelling. Despite all that has happened it still stands proud and tall, defying our enemies and stubbornly shouting to all that would listen that life still goes on. I gently push it and feel its bolts creaking painfully. And I try to feel, to feel for our brave comrades stranded at the front. To feel for the lives lost, or destroyed, or forever altered. To feel for the people and faces behind the wails of despair floating across from the hills beyond.

But I cannot. I have lost my anger, my hate, my happiness, my love. I have lost my innocence and youth, and they will never come back.