Air Strike

Something hard is wedged between my shoulder blades. In my state of half woken groginess, I roll over, eyes still closed. The discomfort at my back fades away, but soon enough there is something else pushing into my body. I groan, wondering where I am and what is going on. All I can remeber is thinking Why is the sky falling? Then, blackness.

My neighborhood sits about me in waves of broken cement. Lead pipes twist up and out of the rubble like broken bones protruding from a broken body. Some of the pipes hemorhage sewage, spewing poop into the shit colored sky.

What happened here?

Who did this?

Where is our military?

I stand up gingerly, I am surprised that I escaped with such minimal injuries. I pick my way across the minefield of dead and smoking homes, occasionally seeing the bloated maggots of bodies protruding from their concrete prisons. I hurry past, trying to ignore the gruesome sights that I already know will haunt my dreams until death. Am I the only on left? As I continue my tour through this newly shaped world, bits and pieces of memory float back to me, messages in bottles thrown onto the beach by the churning waters of my mind.

First I remember the screams, then I remember the planes.

I remember the burning houses and children.

I remember running through the street, and I remeber looking up to see those great black carion birds circle, dropping shrapnel out of the sky.

Why is the sky falling? Because we made it fall on others for far too long.