Pensive Power

Darkness - it lingers, it enthralls and it swallows the very existence in which our foundations have been built.

There was a 21 gun salute today. The last. No one dared mentioned that these were the twenty-one guns remaining cannons in the arsenal. The last ones that fired anything but a measly gasp of air. Their barrels’ shine had dulled, though the shine was predominantly due to the frantic rubbing of a filthy rag only minutes before. Some of the guns were propped up by some desolate piece of rubble or a mound of shrapnel pieces, holding onto dear life.

The soldiers differed little. If the guns were anything to go by, the recruits, barely boys and girls, were not much different from the guns. Their shine on their faces dulled with grease and mud, their uniforms tattered and full of holes, and some stood as though a tree bent to the way of the Sun.

Those in attending knew that they had every intention of standing tall and proud, as way of respect, but this was anything but true. They stood indecisively but determinedly professional, knowing that they were watched by not only the few hundred, but the One as well.