I sit in a dull waiting room where racks of magazines line the walls.
I flip through an old issue of Time.
A dark green couch fills the endless void
of an otherwise all beige room.
The pages flash before me, like images on a TV screen —
A news network whose ratings keep dropping.
Dropping.
A swirl of feathery brush strokes flap against a Carolina blue sky.
Destination: unknown.
I flip faster, hungry for information.
There is still so much I don’t know.
Brown boots with heavy soles
crunch across the dusty, rocky ground,
hoping to bring stability
to an unstable terrain.
They point, aim, fire,
with the risk of sacrificing their lives
for me. For you.
For a freedom they may never get to experience.
A sharp tremor quakes the town
waking a tiny babe, stirring even the heaviest of sleepers,
and setting off an unforeseen wave of destruction.
I see a photograph of a collapsed house,
roof turned to walls, walls to floor.
Someone’s home.
I think of my tiny apartment,
so stable. so comfortable.
Unshaken.
Two hunks of metal intertwine
around the base of an old lamp post.
Separating spirit from body
in their unity.
Lives so violently and abruptly ended
before they really even began.
Tears shed and flowers left in their memory.
I notice they get a brief, but nothing more.
Out the window, an ordinary man walks down the busy city street,
rushing to his 9 to 5 office job,
past a news stand,
completely oblivious.
The Space Between 