January 11: Flash Fiction Challenge
In 99 words (no more, no less) write a story about wet ink. It can be artistic, writerly or something completely off-the-wall. Go where the prompt leads.
“Doc, my family feared I would die shortly after the ink was dry on my enlistment papers. Now I’ve made it back home without a visible wound they want me to tell them what my days were like: what I ate, what I saw, if I met any nice girls. They have no idea all the Army wanted from me was a body count. Having done what I was expected to do in order to survive, now I am dead inside. I’m afraid to go to sleep at night because of the nightmares and ashamed I made it home.”
01/16/2018 at 23:10
Oh, how tragic, Susan. A very real possibility.
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01/18/2018 at 02:31
Survival is everything during; shame follows in its wake. But we are not alone. Thank you for reaching out to me with that message. Have you heard the Josh Groban song, The War at Home? https://youtu.be/VYje3GR2Tew I love the final refrain that our hands are a million strong!
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01/18/2018 at 06:39
I hadn’t heard it, thanks for sharing.
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01/18/2018 at 11:14
Those are 99 tragic words 😦 Let’s hope that one day we stop sending people off to become accountants of body counts. Or that if we can’t/won’t/don’t, that we provide them with the care they need when they make it back home.
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