One of a Kind

One of a Kind

            I walked through the ashes of the tattered and torn city, with the remains of the decaying skeleton of the city around me. The bomb had leveled most of the city, nearly all of what was left had been burned to the ground, and all of the rest was badly battered and bruised. I passed a building seared white by the heat, with the shadows of the people burned into the wall, as the memory of what this city had been was burned into my memory.

            Seeing the shadows was a powerful sight, and made me tear up. I saw the shadow of a little girl with her parents, being lifted up by her dad as the mom looked on a step behind. I could almost picture what had happened in my mind.

The girl and her parents were walking along on vacation, laughing and having a good time. The dad ran up to his little girl, picked her up in his loving arms and lifted her into the air, her giggling and squealing all the while. As they reached the apex of the lift, they went deaf from a horrible roaring sound. The little girl was about to open her mouth to scream, but a half second after the roar a horrible burning sensation had overtaken them, and then all that remained was a shadow.

I fell to the ground on my knees, bent over and started sobbing. I let the tears come out, flowing freely from my eyes and streaming down my face. They ran into my mouth, and the salty tang filled my taste buds. I thought I was being weak from crying, I had already gone so far and long without it, which made me sob even harder.

I thought to myself about what my late wife would think if she saw me like this. She had always seen me as happy, and strong, never too upset or angry. I loved her more than anything, but I had lost her too. I cried then, but that was understandable, I knew her. Now I’m sitting here crying my eyes out and bawling over the lives of a family I never met.

But maybe it wasn’t over that, maybe it was also because I had gone years without human contact. People always said that war is hell, but they’re wrong. Being all alone, without anybody to love with, to laugh with, to cry with, and to be angry with, that’s the true hell. Nobody can understand it unless they go through it.

I let out my tears for a few more minutes, then got up and brushed myself off. The tears still flowed a little, but I had it mostly under control. I started walking, as I had done for what seemed like forever, that I had done for years, all on my own. Because I had to find somebody else, to know that I wasn’t one of a kind.