Summer Rain

It was a hot day, but it didn’t feel like it. The cool summer breeze swept through the park, sending leaves of twilight gold to shower the earth. The laughs and cries of the children soothed the heat like sweet summer rain. If a passerby foreign to the area had walked by, he’d have thought that the idea of the reckoning was insane. That the idea of our mortality was something to scoff. That if the sounds and feelings of this warm summer day could be bottled, than mankind would be divine. All was well.

At 2:45 the bomb went off.

-----

“Sarah!”

I know what I shout as I stumble through the burning playground, blood pouring from my right ear, but I can’t hear it. I can’t hear the screams of parents as they search for their children, dialing 911 in their cell phones while crowds begin to form to watch the blaze. I can’t hear the sirens that ring through the clearings, echoing through the trees. I can’t even hear my own anguished cry as I find Sarah lying beneath the white-hot metal that was once her favorite slide. The metal burns my hands as I tear it away. I snatch her up in my arms, holding her limp body close. I only hear the harsh buzzing of static as I approach the crowd.

“Somebody help me! Please, somebody help!”

-----

I sit alone upon the cold park bench as paramedics and firemen bustle around the playground which is now yellow taped and roped off from the staring crowd. I hold my small wallet photo of Sarah against the white rosemary in my hand, whispering a desperate, pleading prayer over and over again. I stand as the detective who interviewed me approaches. I can tell by the empty look in his eyes what has happened before he even opens his mouth. My knees pop as I hit the ground, my hands pressed against my temples. I’m screaming. I can barely hear but I know I am. I’m screaming out into the hot summer afternoon.

-----

“Do you have the gun I ordered?”

The man nods and pulls the silver revolver from the case. He places it upon the glass counter. I give him my license for the second time. He glances up and meets my eyes as he wipes the barrel of the gun.

“Is this weapon for business or pleasure?”
“Neither.”

He shakes his head and takes out a box of cartridges. I place money on the desk and open the box, taking just one bullet. As I turn to leave the man calls after me.

“Is the pain that bad?”

I answer without looking back.

“It is.”

-----

The news has stopped reporting the attack and moved on to the latest starlet’s rehab run. I switch off the TV and touch my ear. It’s almost healed. Tears run hot down my face. It’s been nearly a month since Sarah died. The funeral was small, like her mother’s. I can see her drawings from across the room, held on the fridge by fruit shaped magnets. I cock the hammer off the gun, switching off the safety, and press the barrel to the side of my head. My hand shakes as I wrap my finger around the trigger. I can still see her pictures. I can hear her laughing as we watch the latest Land Before Time movie. I feel her against my chest as I carry her from the burning playground. I let the gun drop.

-----

“I want to enlist.”

My bags hang by my shoulders as the sergeant fills the forms. Sarah’s drawings are gone, burned. The house is sold. I still have the wallet photo, the only proof she ever existed, tucked in my back pocket. I step on the bus and watch as the town disappears into the distance, the golden leaves twisting away as the wind picks them up.

-----

“Why are you here?”
“Sir, to fight, sir!”

“What do you fight for?”
“Sir, my country, sir!”

“And who do you fight for?”
“Sir...no one, sir!”

-----

“Sarah!”

I scream as the explosions rattle the makeshift tent. Surprise attack. I push myself up and rush past the flimsy cloth entrance, rifle drawn, firing out into the night. I can’t hear the shouts of the confused soldiers. I can’t hear the muzzle blasts as the rifle grows hot in my hands. I hear Sarah’s laughter as she heads down the playground slide. I hear only the sweet sound of summer rain.