Beth stood on a hill and watched the fireworks.

The noise they made seemed to be hammering on her eardrums, pounding its way into her brain. She had only gone to see them because her parents had insisted. Was it any way appropriate to be watching starburst lights on the day her best friend had died?

She simply stood there for several minutes, mind blank.

As a particularly lovely purple firework exploded, she mused. Someday it wouldn't be only pretty lights arcing over the city. Someday people would be looking up to see warheads plummeting down. Someday, perhaps not too far off, instead of pieces of soot raining down there would be seared scraps of human flesh. Knowing the current government, that day would not be long in coming. America, land of the freely exploding nuclear weapons, home of the bravely deceased.

Beth shivered as she stared up into the night sky.

Perhaps it was time to leave. Outer space, while a nice thought, was too difficult to live in anytime soon. Maybe Japan, where they knew the dangers of nuclear weapons after having two of their major cities destroyed by this very country. Possibly she could even help come up with some way to destroy all the so-called 'Weapons of Mass Destruction', a government euphemism for 'bombs that kill lots of people very quickly.'

But perhaps someday in the not-so-far future, all she or anyone else would be able to do was sit back and watch the fireworks.

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A/N: I wrote this last night after coming home from watching the fireworks. It was a lot better, but my dad hustled me off to bed without even time to click the save button. In the morning, I found all my programs closed and therefore lost about 3/4ths of this. So, sorry if it's not as good or long as the original.

We spent the later part of the Fourth of July at my mother's friends' house. He had made a lovely work of art, a beautifully carved cherrywood globe with sharpened (seemingly) brass bullets inset into it. The bullets represented nuclear missels(sp?). There were lots in the US and Russia, one each in Korea and India, and none in South America, Australia, and Japan, as well as several other places.

It's rather creepy to see that all of them are concentrated in the northern hemisphere. I mean, intellectually you know where they are, but it freaks you out a little to see it like that.

He said it was based off War of the Worlds. There were four lovely-shaped cherrywood tentacles dripping off the side of the stand, which he had also made. He said he was thinking of adding some 'bullets' in transparent material...to represent the 'missing' ones in Iraq.

On a side note, I spent most of the time there talking to their daughter and her friends. So I wasn't spending all my time worrying and watching the pretty lights. Oh, and my best friend is utterly and completely alive...I just needed some reason for my character to not want to watch the fireworks other than the fact that endless starburst shapes bore her.