People were propped up on folding wooden chairs, not awake, not asleep. "There's nothing left of them," a Red Cross nurse assured.
A pillow feather literally Elmer glued to a man's upper lip indicated still breathing.
Stop it. The nurse harshed at a hysterical woman. The woman did. She visibly smoothed the turmoil of having lost everything but breath, the stuff of life itself, deeper and deeper into her body. Past the hole in her midriff where the baby had been growing.
We'd been served our values, principles, points, and appendages in some cases on the fine dining luxury wares hoarded onto stranded at sea. This after being thrown from planes, routed from cities, dragged from farmlands, gathered by the unmistakable and growing swirl of had enough. The crucible of warfare. We'd been fed the Constitution and enjoyed it. Spat out broken bloody teeth and through eyes swollen shut with bruise and pus, renewed vows.
To life and liberty.
To each other.
To being AMERICA.
"Act dead," other nurses with a world of accents but little cupcake toothpick American flags in buttonholes giggled at our performance. Snap, snap went the cameras. Snap, snap went the hypnotist's fingers. Snap, snap went the twigs under the foot of the enemy who dared to board. Bullets in the shoulder curled the man's body like a parchment scroll as our own flag was unfurled from its umbrella stand rest.
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