The color blue has always been a favorite of mine. Often, it is associated with the good stuff, stuff like sensitivity, or trust. It can also represent imagination and loyalty – all the lighthearted, noble values you can possibly think of.

When I think of the color blue, I think of things like the light blue frosting on a birthday cake, or the blue bracelets my mom would only wear when she and Dad went out to some place fancy.

But now, I think of innocence.

I mean, blue is really an innocent color. You dress up baby boys in blue clothes, you look up at blue skies and feel nothing but joy bursting out of you, right?

Well, maybe the joy part is something that's a bit different for everyone. I used to look up at a wide open blue sky peppered with clouds of fluff, and then look down at happiness. Happiness was a bowl of ice cream. Happiness was making the little kids laugh, and maybe it also included falling down the stairs and laughing about it.

That's what blue means. An innocent type of joy.

But now, I look up at a wide open blue sky, and it's salted with mushroom clouds, and I don't look down at happiness.

I look at an entirely different meaning of blue.

Blue doesn't always mean something good. It doesn't always mean things like happiness.

I walk around with a rifle in my hand, and you know what happens whenever a kid sees it?

The innocence dies.

That's right. It doesn't matter if they take an innocent curiosity in it and come up to me eagerly, wanting to poke at it and see how it works. It doesn't matter if they back away slowly like frightened little puppies. They know what it can do, and most likely, they've seen what it can do.

The blue doesn't hang onto them like it does with people back home. It doesn't flow behind them like Superman's cape, all regal and mighty, safe and secure.

Instead of a light, airy blue hanging from their shoulders, the way every kid should wear it, these kids drown in it. Blue manages to seep into every aspect of their lives to the point where they are prodded, choked, confined in it.

Sometimes, the blue takes them away. It takes pieces of them: an arm, a leg, an eye. Sometimes it takes their soul by blasting it right out of their tiny bodies. It doesn't have to necessarily be their own soul, either. The blue takes their parents, their siblings, their grandparents, and all that's left of those scared little kids are shells, walking around aimlessly.

And sometimes, I have to take those little shells and break them.