A future.

It is always cold here, and the twisted metal sticks out of the cement like the bones and veins of a gaping wound. When the war finally ended, nobody rebuilt. We live in this wound.

My parents are dead. My whole family, actually. I had two sisters once, but the radiation ate them as I watched. The priest called death a hallowing experience before it took him. I found it more hollowing. He told me that, once, the chapel I call home was beautiful. Bits of colored glass still cling to the frames, testifying of its former glory. I don’t remember.

It is said that people cheered the day the president declared war; cheered in the streets. I wonder if this skeleton-of-a-city ever crossed their minds. ‘Didn’t anyone argue?’ I ask.

‘It is hard to argue with patriotism,’ the adults tell me.

‘Wouldn’t it be patriotic to not want...this?’ Nobody ever answered me, unless averted eyes are an answer.

One man told me once that the war was good, in the beginning. We were helping others, and protecting ourselves in the process, but people began to realize that it wasn’t winding down, It wasn’t ending. ‘Wars are supposed to end once somebody wins, aren’t they?’

‘Wars don’t end.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Your family is dead. They aren’t coming back.’ His words were a slap in the face. I knew it, but nonetheless... ‘That knowledge will never leave you, girl. It isn’t over until you are dead.’ He laughed a little then. ‘Maybe it doesn’t even end there. Do you believe in God?’