War

I woke up with my usual routine. I stood up, stretched out and ran to the radio to hear the war news. I sat down at the radio and I pushed some sleep out of my eyes. I didn’t get much sleep because of all the nightmares about war and I had huge circles underneath my eyes. My once beautiful blond hair (or that is what my father used to call it) now looks more like a bunch of ropes hanging from my head. My birthday was next week and I would become 11 and my dad was not here for the first time ever. I reached out for the button of the radio and turned in on, Then I tried to turn the knob to get to the right channel but I couldn’t reach it, I was to small. I ran towards the dining room and grabbed a chair. Fortunately, we had a very small house and I didn’t have to pull it that far. The chair was really heavy and it wasn’t keen to move so it resisted a lot. “Oh come on you darn chair!” I dragged the chair towards the radio and turned it to the right channel still breathing heavily. “Why is everything so super heavy?” I sighed. “Duh, it’s because you’re only ten years old and very small for your age and you have never been rich so you didn’t get a lot of food in your life.”

Suddenly the radio jumped towards the right channel. I sat down on the chair and listened as JFK finished his regular speech. “Fight for your country... the germans... blah blah blah.” Then the program went to the known casualties list. “Amount of casualties today: 36. Names: John Greed, Jack Doulas, Justin Bidder, Edward Culling, Joe Jones, Harry Styler, Julian Barney...” The world slowed down and my heart stopped, the voice of the man who read the names still pounding in my head “Julian Barney” I screamed and crashed on the ground “NO DAD, you can’t be dead! Why? WHY?” My mom ran down the stairs and looked confused, when she saw me she realized what was going on. She ran towards me and hugged me, “He is dead right?” I nodded and I watch her expression, her face turned a bright shade of green and grey, tears streaming down her horrified face. She shook her head and started sobbing heavily. I put my arms around her and we cried, together.