...I look down at my hands, covered in crusted blood, under my fingernails. It's travelled up my arm, and it's still coming out of him. There's nothing I can do to stop it. I apply another tourniquet. The boy squirms. Begging for medication. I hold his hand as I wait for him to be evacuated. Father Thomas sits with us and prays...

The night is sticky and warm. Like walking through spider webs clinging to your skin despite your best efforts to brush them away. Our windows are open and the hum of the fan drone in the background like voices in another room. My mother lies ill, she's suffering from kidney failure, and stomach cancer. A common disease among people here. The food we're given from the government is full of byproduct that I'm sure they don't even know what is in it. Even if they did I'm sure we don't want to know. I stay quiet so as not to disturb her rest. I replaced her lipids earlier in the evening which should sustain her for a while. I was quiet partly because of my mother's piercing looks like staring a wolf in the face, and her powerful jaws are words. If it weren't for her illness and my sense of duty I would never return home. Standing in my old bedroom gives me no sense of nostalgia, rather it feels like a slow death, it drains me. Everytime I leave I feel as though I haven't slept in days. Tonight is so hot I wear a red workdress rather than my usual fatigues. It's still young in the evening and I'm already exhausted. I turn to look at the mirror. I'm a mess, my thick auburn tresses are pulled back in a braid. It's a feeble attempt to contain it's mass as frizzy flyaways abound. My olive skin glistens with moisture. My eyes are wide and hazel. I'm supple, ready to be fed upon. So the look of fear is constant. I feel guilt sometimes for being fed. Yet, I must be fed if I'm to be of any use to others. Ciro short and muscular, his hair is brown and meets his collar bone which he wears under a beanie hat. He's not beautiful in the traditional sense. He isn't starry eyed, or tall. His nose looks like it's been broken on more than one occasion as it leans to the left a bit. HIs eyes are so brown they appear black. His lips however are lush and his black eyes are kind. He has high cheekbones and a defined jawline. He's so muscular he appears to be wider than he is tall. His face bearded macho in appearance. Ciro is far from macho, despite his exterior he is flawed, sensitive, behind his black eyes I see it. The fear, the despair, Hopelessness. A deep pool emotion wanting to get out. He stands the street from my house the flickering streetlight illuminating him, each pull of a cigarette further illuminating his face, exaggerating his features. He's like a hawk, circling me constantly, my protector. He's ever vigilant. Ever there. So much so it's as though he's an extension of me. We walk at a brisk pace. Dilapidated stucco buildings line our path buildings which were lost in time. The buildings are ghosts of what was. It's been fifteen years since the war but rubble sits just as it did then. Some buildings are only walls and a crumbling foundation. It looks like if you could poke a hole into their exteriors with your finger. The alleyways appear like vast portals to no where, at least no where good. They're dark, ominous, and silent aside from the occasional cries of fucking cats, or people. Prostitutes grab at Ciro as we pass telling him we're looking for a daddy.. He pays them no mind, he treats them as though they don't exist. He keeps his pace beside me. Junkies vomit in alleyways. The place smells of poverty. It smells of disease, it smells of death, shit, urine, and pussy. Desperation. We pass by the army barracks tall iron walls with barbed wire crowns. An iron gate is the only hint that there is a way into the compound. Which we run past. We're not allowed on the streets after dark, and being part of the Red Flag we'll for sure be incarcerated. Ciro still bears scars on his back from his time being interrogated. We both know that if I were to be discovered my fate would be much worse. We walk along in silence. Ciro is a man of little words yet he can speak with his looks. He looks at me periodically through the walk and bores through me with as though he's peering inside me. Strangely I feel I can see into him too, like as we walk along a look toward each other we tell the other one exactly what we feel. We continue to the compound which is really only an abandoned hotel. A reminder that Saint Jude used to be a popular tourist destination. We must cross through a grand courtyard which is now palm trees surrounded by unchecked weeds. The pathway of the courtyard leads to a once spectacular entrance of tall glass doors and golden molding. A marvelous stained glass windows sit above the rest casting erie colored shadows along the way. As we enter the heavy once lovely door groans, struggling against the rust. Often I imagine what the place was like in it's heyday. People dressed in their finery sipping mimosas and eating appetizers. The now empty pool filled with beautiful bodies and the sound of children. Ciro and I must split down separate hallways when we arrive. Before he leaves for his hallway he hands me a bag his fingers lingering on mine as he hands it off. "Empanadas my mother sent for the children." He stares at me for a moment concern in his eyes. He's telling me something isn't right. He holds the gaze momentarily and then breaks contact turning on his heel disappearing into the darkness. I nod and make my way to the hospital. The lobby is like a heart enveloping diverging with hallways like veins from the heart. The hallway is dimly lit creating eerie atmosphere. Sometimes the air within the hallway is so oppressive with mildew I feel as though the hallway is only inches wide. It opens up into a grand ballroom with marble floor and capitals leading to a ceiling muraled with nude women peeling grapes to robed men resting on clouds in a blue sky. The ballroom and a few of the private rooms for the critically ill make up the hospital. The room is open and brightly lit with wide windows facing the once lush courtyard. Curtains are drawn to separate bed in a fruitless attempt at privacy. There's a lounge area of a few sofas and a folding table. The hum of the generator replaces the jazz music for ambiance. We can house up to two hundred people, though after last years hurricane we held five hundred.. The majority of the patients suffer from preventable diseases. Hepatitis and syphilis are the main culprits. The antibiotics needed are smuggled in by a network of sympathizers by a network of of our cache is stolen from hospitals of Notre Dame or through the Eurasian Union. Our stock however is inconsistent as sometimes the network moves at a snails pace when there is unrest in other municipalities. Though the causes of the diseases is preventable the mechanisms of prevention are unattainable. Condoms are increasingly expensive, vaccines impossible to get our hands on. The food and radioactive exposure sentences the workers to a slow death by cancer. Chemotherapy is another impossibility so we make their death as painless as possible. Unlike in Notre Dame where the survival rate is 100%. The cancer patients are placed in the private rooms. For their own well being, and because we try to shield the other patients from death. Though they know it is there. It's accepted. More like expected. The children's ward is where I spend most of my time. Most suffer from tuberculosis, or typhus, or whatever the virus of the week happens to be. They're so malnourished they pick up everything. There are a few who have hepatitis. Gloves and masks must be worn at all times. So I try to animate myself for them as much as possible for them. It's hard as I'm not the most jovial woman in the world. They look at me with their hollow yellow eyes as I enter the ward. Perched like hunting dogs knowing in my bag I carry a decent meal. I take my time checking all their vital signs, and feeding tubes. The longer I round the more anxious they become. "'Mr. Ciro gave me these empanadas.." The little Pavlov's puppies salivate. "Would you like them?" They nod their heads, the ambulatory ones jump up and hug me as I hand them the savory treats. Some children cannot take in solid food so I puree their treats and feed it to them. I see Ciro standing at the edge of the ward. I feel a sense of joy that is fleeting if not unattainable most of the time. It's the same for them. Happiness is uncommon here. I can feel it in Ciro too. When I turn to look at him again he's disappeared into the darkness. I hear footsteps and look up to see Marc standing in the doorway, he's standing there still like an apparition. His curly locks pulled back in a ponytail, red shirt blazing in the dim light.n He's truly a specimen. He is beautiful in everyway. His face is strong with chiseled jaw and a roman nose. Every feature is that of a man. When he clenches his jaw his facial muscles ripple. His skin is olive which exaggerate the blueness of his eyes. The children hush when they see him. He elicits such laude from all who lay their eyes upon him. With bravado he struts in without dawning the even disease is too amazed by him to infect him. "What are you all up too?" He asks coyly. "We have treats." A little boy with wide brown eyes and a shaven head pipes up. He isn't intimidated by him. In Fact he could be a little Ciro the only other person who isn't impressed by his mere presence. "Oh, are there any for me?" "No…" The little one giggles. "I have to steal Miss. Lola away for is that okay." The brave toddler answers "I guess so." "A little Ciro isn't he." Marc chuckles. He sees it too. We walk side by side in silent I don't know what he's thinking. Not like I know Ciro. It's only by his behavior that I can make a guess at his emotion even then it's hit and miss. He pulls me into a corridor. His blue eyes are serious. They take on an icy stoicism. "We're labeled as a terrorist organization. We intercepted a memo. They're going to shut us down. With force." His eyes and quivering lips read terror to me. "Tonight." "What?" "We have to move underground." "We already are underground." "Out of the city." "What about the children?" "We'll have to evacuate them to the church. Get everyone to the tunnels." The tunnels are a network of just that tunnels which goods are smuggled through. I exhale. I was tutored by Father Thomas, a priest from our local mission who is also a doctor. The mission seeks to educate us into becoming a society of love and peace. To facilitate health. They can handle emergencies, but they do not accept smuggled goods and cannot care for the ill in the same manner we can. "Lola." I look back to him. "Pack your things. Come back here in fifteen minutes." I nod and head to my office. Going home is not an option, not when the armory is nearby. Where they're assembling for the slaughter. My family will be okay. My father was once a prominent broadcaster in Notre Dame. He is not a partisan, rather fully supports the regime. Alcoholism turned what was once prestige into ruin, he was cast out like Lucifer from the affluent Notre Dame down here to Saint Jude, where he writes for the local paper. Mostly about how great the government is taking care of us. I think he actually believes it. At least he thinks we get what we deserve. That the people here are poor from their own malise. Marc has long drawn the ire of the government. He elicited riots in Saint Jude and Lyon. He publicly embarrassed the governor. Part of his audacity comes from his father's influence as a politician. Now he doesn't have his fathers protection as he died a month ago. Marc didn't attend his funeral not only because he's disgusted by his father's position but because he isn't safe in Notre Dame. I thought very hard about becoming a nun. A life of penance seemed ideal for me. I'm constantly behaving destructively, I'm confused, emotionally unstable, toxic the structure would be perfect for me. I felt this especially under Father Thomas' tutelage. He worked as a doctor all over the world caring for the poor. He recognized that urge inside me, the urge to help. It's more compulsive I don't think about it. I do. Like with the man with no shoes. No man deserves more than another. I thought so hard about being a nun, but I fell in love. Marc Depardieu. I'd watch him young and full of fervor teaching the illiterate, pulling junkies from gutters and putting them to work building the compound, where their lives mean something. His eyes were genuine, and I knew he was destined for more than what St. Jude could offer. I know this because he is not from Saint Jude. He knows what hope looks like. I felt so pulled to him. He illuminated with karisma. He was a champion of the hopeless and he was real. Jude felt a little less helpless with him around taking us in. The more I saw him the stronger the gravitational pull became. He was well known in Saint Jude because of his defiance to the status quo. When I was younger I witnessed him beating a soldier who had been flogging a citizen who took extra rice for his family. This elicited riots. From then on. The people of Saint Jude turned to him, harbored him, loved him. Five years ago I decided I wanted to work for him. Not just because I loved his work but because I was infatuated with him. Father Thomas begged me not to fraternize with him but I couldn't resist. I gathered the courage to talk to him one day as he was delivering fresh vegetables to the kiosk. He looks me in the eyes, dead in the eyes. I feel he's stripping me bare and peering into my essence. He looked at me like a man looks at a woman and though I was no innocent I actually felt stirring for the first time. I felt desire for a man. Though in what way I didn't know. My nerves bounced around with more ferocity with each step I took toward him. I couldn't run away, he had already seen me. So I walked up to him, attempting to steady my stride. I attempted confidence. "Father Thomas has trained me in medicine." How impolite of me not to say hello. I fucked it up. "That's very nice." He says with a half smile. Amused by my nerves. He's condescending me. "I'd like to work for you." He smiles. More condescension? "Girl, you want to work with me." He emphasized the "with" to convey that is a man of the people. "Who are you? Miss medic?" "Lola Parish." I extend my hand which he takes. He hasn't once broken eye contact with me. My stomach begins to flitter and I feel the blood rush from my head. "I know who your father is. I saw his career end on television. Do you know who I am?" I nod my head to him. "How old are you?" He asks me. "Twenty." He smiles. His face is beautiful without measure. Blue eyes gaze at me from underneath black eyebrows and long lashes. His curly locks tied back in a bun though a few flyaways frame his face. He has a nose like Ceasar and bearded face looking almost godly. As though a statue has been erected somewhere in his honor. He's tall and lean adding to the godly aura around him. Marc leads me to the compound, and takes me to the hospital. Every few steps he turns and looks at me inquisitively as though gauging my fortitude. The patients are all hollow skin and bones, addicts are vomiting on the floor and covered in sores One man screams sexually degrading things at me. Some stare at me with jaundice eyes and skin. He leads me to the office where we sit. He looks me in the eyes, so penetrating it's as though the world has stopped. "Do you think you can handle this? Most of our patients die. We provide them with what we can. Mostly a comfortable death." He puts his hands intertwined on his stomach as he leans back in his chair. He looks as though he's glowing against the maroon accent wall behind him. "Yes." "Everyday? Lola I know about the incident where you ran away into the forest." "I live in Saint Jude every day. I need something structured, I need to feel needed." "There's nothing we can do sometimes." He says grinning. "Then I'll give them dignity." He smiles. "Girl you are determined aren't you?" I nod. He leans back and stares at me with a smirk on his face, he rocks back and forth staring at me. He breaks eye contact after what seems like an eternity, and looks at his shoes. Then he gazes back up at me. "Can you start today?" "Yes." "If you can last a month I'll grant you a position in the movement." There went my plans of religious vocation. That stare left me wanting more, salivating. Does he look at everyone that way? Every glance gave me butterflies, and my desire was to please him. It was as though he had known me his whole life. I saw him every day. We shared smiles and jokes. We had deep conversations about human rights. All our spare time was spent together. I craved his company when he wasn't with me, my heart would leap when I knew we'd meet. He invited me to his apartment for coffee after I had finished a month. He sat across his small table from me. Starting with an intensity that I felt. The butterflies started. When he spoke it was with a cool inflection like he was cooing at me. "Do you like working here? With me?" He asked me looking straight at me. Putting a piece of empanada in his mouth. "Yes." I nodded to him. "No need for niceties Lola. Be honest." "I love it. Especially the children. I feel like I've found my purpose.'' He smiled at me and dusts the flakes of crust from his hands. He sets the coffee in front of me. His apartment is very sterile the walls are bare only a kitchen, couches, and a bed. Still it was warm. I felt myself getting closer and closer to him until we touched and then our lips touched, and our bodies, and eventually our whole selves. I let him take control of me. He overwhelmed my senses. He took me places I hadn't been before. We devoured each other rolling in a cocoon of sheets and collapsing into an amorphous heap unsure as which limb belonged to who.. We were silent. Marc's eyes were closed. I kept waiting for his to open them and say something. I've had many partners in my young life, they were a means of escape. I can't remember all their faces. They all left me devastated and empty, only a momentary release. Not like Marc, not the complete devastation he bestowed upon me filling me, and feeling me and I loved it. I wanted more, and I was desperate. So I watched him waiting. He never spoke. Eventually he rolled over and started over again. I heard his quickened breath, his occasional grunt or moan, I could hear him smelling my hair and the sound his lips made when they touched me. But he never spoke. We didn't focus on that, though his skin on mine quenched my loneliness. Our work was most important. I watched the patients come. I saw children die. Each day rage would build inside me. Each day I wanted the world to know what happens in Saint Jude. Each day a sense of futility grew within me. Hate grew within me.. I forgot I loved Marc, the hate inside me was too strong. The tenderness he gave me did nothing any more to fill the void. I didn't want his hope because I didn't feel it. I tried and am still trying but the more I try the more frustrated I become. Somewhere deep inside me I love him and I know it. I needed someone to reciprocate my hate. Marc couldn't do that. All of his rage was fixated at the government. He was able to separate himself from it and love me in a truly loving way. The building is in utter chaos. Before I can reach Marc there is the first explosion. Which knocks me to the ground. I scramble to my feet and run in the direction of the exit. Navigating by memory as the darkness and sting of smoke in my eyes was blinding. "Mortar Fire!" Ciro yells out. I tuck my medic's bag into me as a mother would her child. More shells rain down. The plaster of the old building falls like downpours of rain. I can hear the sound of fire being returned. The sound of it was deafening. "The Children's ward has collapsed!" a voice yells out. A voice belonging to Father Thomas. My legs carry me with superhuman speed to where the ward stood the only word to describe the scene is gore. Bits of flesh and viscera are strewn about. There I see him, the little boy with the big mouth. The little Ciro whose name I didn't know. His skin translucent in the darkness from blood loss, his right leg is missing crushed underneath a chunk of muraled ceiling. Blood pools around him making it look as though he's laying on a dark hole. I kneel in his blood and assess the child. I run my hands up and down him I feel something hard piercing him, a viscous substance warms my hand and as I pull my hand out from underneath him I see the hand covered in blood. The world goes silent. I can see Father Thomas kneeling by the boy attempting to talk to him. He's looking at me. He's saying something. "Tourniquet!" "Tourniquet!" Father Thomas screams out, and I tourniquet his tiny little leg. I rejoin to moment. Frantically working with Father Thomas to stabilize the boy. To put in IV's through blown veins. I look down at my hands, covered in crusted blood, under my fingernails. It's travelled up my arm, and it's still coming out of him. There's nothing I can do to stop it. I apply another tourniquet. The boy squirms. Begging for medication. I hold his hand as I wait for him to be evacuated. Father Thomas sits with us and prays. He calls for his mother. The mother who abandoned him. He whimpers and shutters and the life in his eyes go away. The ability to reason leaves me. I shriek. Swearing fighting off whomever comes to aid me. I want to kill someone, I want to kill the man who sent the mortar. I charge toward the armory. A hand grabs me around my waist and carries me like a sack of potatoes away. He had no shoes on his feet coated black from all the grime they had traversed in. I imagine the soles of his feet are thick leather. Standing there by the trashcan digging for scraps. He's mumbling something to himself though what I am unsure. His blonde hair matted and pointing in all directions. His skin is tan although I'm not sure if it's because he's so dirty. He's just standing there in ankle deep water. The rain was pounding at the windows of our car, daddy was inside the store and mama was reading. I smooth my Sunday dress. My favorite sunday dress that was gingham and tied with a little red ribbon at the waist. I look down toward one of the pockets on each hip on the dress. check my change pocket. I have a single dollar coin. I look down at my shoes my only possession of any quality the shiny patent leather. I rub it with my fingers and watch the man with no shoes. All the things he's been stepping on. Shattered glass, needles, rocks. My heart is breaking seeing him. It's to a point that it's unbearable. I can't continue to look at him without feeling like there's something obstructing my throat. No person should live this way. I slowly and quietly remove my shoes, I unlock the door and run into the store my mama hollering. I find a pair of sandals and slap my dollar and the satin ribbon from my dress on the clerk's desk. I tap the man on a shoulder and hand him the shoes. He at first pays me no mind, then his face turns, his eyes confused. His eyes begin to well with tears and he smiles at me. My mother whacks me across the head when I get back in the car. stinging like a hundred bees. Not for talking to a homeless man but for ruining my Sunday dress. I shutter alert for a moment, where I can see the flames from the compound lighting the sky. "Never do that again!" Mama scolds. Tears well up in the corners of my eyes. "Don't you cry neither! You don't know if that man was on drugs, or a pedophile or anything else." "He had on no shoes. Everyone deserves a pair of shoes." I choke out. "At your expense. How did you pay for the shoes?" "My dollar and ribbon." I stare down at my Sunday dress, soaked and clinging to me, a void in the middle where the ribbon used to be. I feel a whack and my face sting. The slap brings me back to reality, I'm laying in a tent beside Marc, he's curled around me like a protective shell sleeping. It's twilight whether morning or night I don't know. the remnants of a fire smolder, an encampment is set up. Ciro sits beneath a tree smoking a cigarette and drinking coffee. "Awake chica?" He says. He has a cut on his face that appears superficial. I walk toward him and sit facing him picking at nettles. I notice a hole ripped in his pants and pieces of his shirt torn. Beside the cut his face is badly bruised. "What happened?" "I had to fight my way out. Fisticuffs" "How long was I out." He looks at me, he's concerned. "Two days, Father Thomas sedated you on the way out." He exhales, and cocks his head, I can feel tension and fear in him. "You lost it a little bit." A reminder it was real. I begin to sob. Before a single sound can erupt from my mouth. "Shh…" He puts a finger to his lips. and his hand over my mouth. I look down at my hands, blood still caked them. I scream into his hand. He picks me up and carries me to a blue green pond. Without removing my clothes or his he carries me in. The cold water shocks me out of hysteria, still Ciro dunks me a couple times for good measure. The without a word he walks away sopping wet clothes. , I rub the blood from my skin and scrub my hair. I bathe myself fully in the water. Closing my eyes until I hear a branch crack. I dip down beneath the water it doesn't feel cold anymore, it's refreshing. I'm wide awake now.