A Summer Story

Saturday Centus is here once more, and you know the drill. A prompt of 13 words from Mr. Jenny (Matlock), a hundred words from me, and a story for all of you! The prompt is in red. Here goes...

Summer came but I couldn't feel it, not deep in my heart or warm on my skin. The sun shone; the sweet smell of lilacs drifted through my window, but the smile plastered over my face was performance art, a cover-up for my real expression of....

Fear. What did fear look like? Maybe that tight-lipped grimace with uplifted corners I wore for my mother. She looked like death, and every day I hoped she was wrong.

We missed him, both of us, our dreams riddled with mujahideen and bomb blasts. He was a reporter, not a soldier.

It was Father's Day, 1984, when I heard that voice in the hallway. The nightmare had ended. He was home.

(Inspiration for this story was Richard Pauli, a reporter who smuggled himself into Afghanistan during its war with the Soviet Union, capturing rare footage of a "secret" conflict that wasn't being recorded visually due to governmental constraints.)

I wonder if fathers know how important they are in the lives of their children. I sincerely hope my own husband does, because he means everything to them.

Happy Father's Day to you, Dave...and to all of those other irreplaceable dads out there.

=)