Willow

Nighttime swallows me as the rhythmic chirping of insects lulls me to sleep. The moon bathes me in its light, guarding me from harm, from the deepest darkness of the night. I rest under a willow tree; we both weep tonight.

The tree's bark is riddled with holes and stripped of bark, leaving naked, vulnerable patches of the tree's flesh. Many of its branches hang unliving and brown. In somber moonlight, I look upon my own flesh. Scars and bruises splotchily cover my body like a suit of armor forged from alcoholism and neglect. My eyes meet a tear in my blouse. A scar across my chest is revealed.

Tears well up in my eyes; I remember the searing pains once again - the fine slice of a blade through flesh, the lash of a whip along my spine - it all rushes back. I shut my eyes and contort a scream into an agonized moan. Vivid memories flood my mind like a sanguine river. I cannot bear it; my limbs buckle. I collapse and desperately gasp for breath as two streams of tears run from my eyes to the ground.

Seconds, or perhaps hours later, the emotions subside. The flashbacks ebb. My chest rises and falls like the tide of a peaceful ocean. I remember my mother, father, and family. I remembered more scars, more pain. Then, I remembered today.

Today, I escaped. Today, I finally broke free of my prison. I broke free of entrapment. I fled the losing battle that I've fought my whole life. But I still bear the cuffs and chains of imprisonment; I still wear the scars of war like medals of shame, of misfortune, of injustice.

Wounded, weeping, and weary, but alive: just like this willow.

Silent Song

Drought has ravaged the plains of this country. The earth cracks and crumbles under the feet of the souls brave enough to walk these barren fields. The lonesome riverbed ran dry months ago; the flow of mud has become a wind of dust. Dead grasses layer the prairie with a dusty mulch.

The sun begins to set. The glow casts an orange fire of desperation, but no flames ignite. Nothing stands taller than a blade of wilted grass. The plains are a land without shadows, without life. Soon, though, the greatest umbra of all descends upon these fields: night. The stars shine down, twinkling silently, as if playing a song without instruments. The toneless melody haunts the listeners like a long-dry riverbed. The moon casts a gloomy light onto the plains, the river: another inaudible tone, another voiceless melody.

Suddenly, the moon begins to flicker. A new tune begins to clash with the old melody. The moon becomes obscured - an instrument disappears from the symphony of silence. More clouds ominously slide across the sky and quell the music of the stars. With a blinding flash, a true song reverberates from a new band of thunderclouds and raindrops.

Invisible Band

Night falls on a diner at the edge of a small town. The tables rest empty - the few customers present opt to sit at the bar. The kitchen falls silent without orders to fill. Aged fluorescent lights flicker.

Suddenly, though, the lights cut out. The hum of the air conditioning quickly fades. Patrons and employees alike look around, bewildered and startled. An eerie silence envelopes the diner.

But then, a sound slowly began to pierce the darkened silence. A drum beats life into the still setting. The occupants of the diner run outside to locate the source. When the door shuts behind them, a chiming guitar begins to cry away with a haunting melody. Vocals, though not words, ripple through the atmosphere. The voice evokes fear and awe, like the wailing of a ghostly choir.

Neither the customers nor the employees of the diner can find the source. A violin joins in harmony with the guitar, and the invisible band echoes their song around the moonlit town. People begin to leave their houses and apartments, mesmerized and awestruck. The song changes through keys and scales until the moon reaches its highest point in the sky, when the music suddenly stops.

The lights in the diner flicker back to life. The mystified population returns to its homes. The people of the diner return to their now-cold meals.

Atop the diner, the drummer whispers to his band mates, "They never look up."

Hospital Haze

The young man opens his eyes, only to have a bright light blind him. He groaned, and squinted in an attempt to look around. In a daze, he rolled his head to the right and saw the edge of a pillow. A few neurons fired in the haze of his mind. This wasn't where he fell asleep; he didn't even remember falling asleep.

With a bit of effort, the bewildered youth turned his head and gaze to the left. The glint of a polished metal pole caught his eye. He followed the glint to its apex, where he saw a plastic bag filled with liquid. More neurons fired. He blinked; his mind processed the situation.

 Hospital. He must have been in a hospital. He tried to sit up, but his arms wouldn't lift him. His eyes wandered between his arms. Casts encased both limbs.

The youth heard the sound of a door opening, and a few sets of feet entering. A woman, a man, and a young girl appeared. The child chirped with joy and ran over to the bed. She buried her face in the youth's chest and cried tears of joy. She clung to him as if she would otherwise fall off the face of the planet. It was his sister.

The man smiled weakly; tears welled up in his eyes. "Son... don't ever scare us like that again."

The woman, immaculate in her white garb, said, "Welcome back, Jonathan. How are you feeling?"

Mourning Heart

A scorched vale in the midst of mountains had fallen to fire years ago. A once-glorious metropolis lay shattered, ashen, and lost in the wake of the fire's destruction. A young woman, once a resident of the city, returned to her hometown's ruins, like a grown child returning to the graves of her parents. The taint of the ash still polluted the air; the winds still wafted the essence of fire across the valley as if a new fire burns every day.

She looked somberly upon her old home, the pile of rubble that lay lifeless in the heart of a once-brilliant valley. The young woman stood at the west edge of the city; the cold autumn dusk cast a fading orange glow upon the ruins of the metropolis. Her footsteps echoed off of every slab of concrete, every dilapidated wall. The reverberations spoke nothing but the most melancholy, hollow words. Every former residence displayed a blackened, charred exterior.

She approached the graveyard near the very core of the city. The light of sunset poured into the clearing amongst the last remnants of destruction. She knelt beside the two smallest gravestones in the far corner of the cemetery. From her cloak, she drew a single flower. With a mournful, pained glisten in her eye, she rested the blossom between the two stones.

"Rest your mourning heart, dearest Emi," spoke a voice from behind. The young woman turned hesitantly. Upon seeing the man's face, she leaped into a joyful embrace with him, as a child would do upon seeing the return of a missing parent.

With tears in her eyes, Emi said, "Brother, I'm so glad you're still alive..."

Ruins

From the hills above my old home, I see fire erupting. Automobiles rush along the roads in mass exodus. I watch my old friends run, screaming for their mothers, their children, their gods. The great clamor's magnitude overpowers nature. The valley fades from view in the wake of the chaos.

I cannot watch, but ignoring it would only bring me more pain. Nobody else stays, but I remain.

The burning buildings begin to collapse. My heart aches for those trapped inside, but it does not bring me to tears. None of it brings me to tears - I'm beyond crying. The disaster wounds me, attacks me, but there is no-one to be sad for, no-one to receive the force of my frustration.

Dusk grows nearer. Little else but the streets remain visible. What remains of the city remains under rubble. I begin to turn toward the direction from which I came, but a small bit of paper catches my eye. As I approach it, I realize it is a fragment of a newspaper, blown by the wind from the city. Its edges are charred and torn, but two words of headline remain legible:

"Internal Threat."

I return my gaze to the ruins of the city, and I see that a single building survived the otherwise ubiquitous destruction.

I shut my eyes for a moment, and open them again. I feel my fist close around the paper.

The tears never come, but the anger does.