#FridayFlash – The War

I dreamed of the bombers again last night. Their steady drone filled the air, and orange flames tore open the skies. I woke up with my hands clamped against my ears, fighting to block out the banshee wail of the sirens. I thought I smelled the damp earth of the shelter, and I expected to see my mother bent over me. But my eyes adjusted to the gloom and made out the pink floral wallpaper and old wooden dressing table.

I lay in the darkness, waiting for my breathing to slow. Sirens still screamed in the street, like the perverse nocturnal mating call of the police. Fire tore open the world, but these flames came from the hands of youths, and the glass bottles they wielded.

I switched on the radio, hoping to block out the sounds of violence. Baton on bone, fist on flesh. I burrowed into the strains of Chopin, leaving behind the cacophony of war. Not my war, not back in the good old days when the baddies hid in castles on the continent and we fought over decency and common sense. No, this war is alien to me, fought between citizens on the same side. Or what used to be the same side.

I sniff back a tear. I never thought I would be nostalgic for that old Anderson shelter at the bottom of the garden. I loved the old boy, until he left for France and never came back, but in a way, I’m glad my dad isn’t here.

It would kill him all over again to see what’s become of the country he died to protect.