Sometime in November

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01 November, 2018

As Eagle U-2117 took to the skies, the winds darted into Adam’s eyes throwing him into a moment of pain. He rolled his eyes to restore lost water as he attempted to draw in fresh air whilst keeping his eyes wet still.

He felt a jab of intense dryness in his nostrils. He looked below in time to catch a glimpse of green stretch in acres of moving trees.

It had been 12 months since he last saw Angie and Adri.

Thoughts of Angie consumed him like a hungry inferno. His member stood erect as he imagined a thousand things he would do to her warm body.

He retrieved her last mail from his faded fatigue dated 01 January 2018. The last words ‘yours and ever truly’ on the printed text gave him solace as ever. It had been their love codeword. Amidst the clash of disappearing thoughts, he tried to envision how huge Adrienne, his daughter would have grown.

He had never seen his daughter except for the picture attached to the mail. His heartbeat lay in a pink shawl, all red at birth. By a soldier’s called-up calculation, Adri would have been 11 months of age.

He had been deployed for MISSION RATTLESNAKE when he received the scan of his growing foetus. His joy had climbed up the mountains and touched the skies. He still couldn’t believe that in less than 3 days he would see his wife and child again.

***

04 November, 2018

A muffled sound brought Angie back to earth. She groaned as she slowly awoken to realize she was stuck under a pile of fallen blocks. She felt a throbbing pain in her head as she struggled to breathe underneath the rubble.

Her legs felt numb and swollen from the pressure. She struggled to rid herself of the surrounding chaos when she remembered the horror she last witnessed.

“My baby!! Oh my God! My baby.” Her heart cracked with great trembling. “It can’t be,” she muttered to herself.

From whence the strength came to push herself out the mess she didn’t know but she did know she was on her feet. The house was stark dark. Who was she kidding? This wasn’t a home anymore. She couldn’t tell where things had been kept or which door was which- everything had been reduced to a pile of thrash.

She searched the ruins and listened in for any faint cry.

God!

How could she have fallen unconscious? She was a mother for God’s sake.

“Adri? Adri?” she muttered. But the child couldn’t reply.

The emptiness of the house dawned on her. She pushed away broken cement as she suddenly realized she may be standing on top of her daughter. Let her be safe! Let her be safe, her mind was too confused to say a prayer.

As a Christian devout, she still couldn’t bring herself to say any words now. Thoughts of her daughter beclouded her faith.

She stood at an intersection of the wreckage, rotating in furtive search when her eyes met with a limb in pink clothing under the collapsed refrigerator – she jerked towards it, pushing it away.

Her heart was pregnant with trepidation as it plummeted six feet below anguish. She brought her dying baby to her motherly arms, rocking her into interminable sleep. She was exanimate! There was no point saving her!

Her baby didn’t get to eat the Cerelac she had prepared before dooms moment. If anyone had told her that in about an hour she would lose her pride of motherhood she would never believe it.

***

“Echo, eyes to the sky! I repeat, eyes to the sky, no dropping that bird. Air force Base compromised, I repeat, Base compromise. Abort Mission and dock down. Alpha 23105, come in. Give me a concise status report the frequency crackled and died. Fifteen minutes to landing and the pilot seemed white-lipped.”

There was silent.

“What could have gone wrong?” Adam wondered. Just as he had bespoken the question that begged on his comrade’s mind also, the reason greeted his eyes with a whack.

“Oh shit!” the pilot testified. Shots were fired from below.

“Engage in full combat. Soldiers save your asses.” The young Staff Sergeant Abdul Terror was inevitably struck with terror.

All Adam could cogitate was the safety of his wife and daughter. They had just come from ransacking a city now his home was reddened in the same flames he started miles away, only a few weeks ago. There were no erect buildings, just destruction and total devastation.

A cold November breeze wafted, in throwing him in a pit of reality. War, he suddenly realized was never the answer. How many lives of innocent civilian and children had he taken? They were uncountable as he sadly recognized.

Too late, the guns were playing in his community now and he was dancing to its dreary tune.

The god of War was but a merciless deity, devouring both his devotees and non-worshippers.