1805
The sun had just broken away from the horizon and sprayed its light everywhere down below, including though a large crack in a wooden door of a basement of a house in South Carolina. The light disturbed the slumber of a man who was lying down, asleep using his arm as a pillow. The cold hard ground prevented him and the other people in the basement from getting a decent night's sleep. A lot of things these days prevented them from getting sleep. The man had finally gotten to sleep and it seemed like only minutes later was when the sun woke him up. The man's back stung from the lashes he took the day before. He muffled his cries by pressing the remains of his shirt against his face.
He got forty lashes for, what the overseer had assumed as running away. He tried to explain that he was not running away but merely scaring off a stray dog from scaring the cattle. The overseer saw this as talking back and the man earned another ten lashes from the original thirty he was going to get.
Another occupant of the room crawled over to him. "Jermaine, how's your back?" He asked.
Jermaine Allensworth sat up as he put his shirt on but resting the back of his shirt to rest on his neck so that it wouldn't irritate the wounds.
"Stings as if I just got them." He replied.
Suddenly, the door swung open and a large burly man stood in the doorway. The man was holding a whip and wearing a pistol on his belt. "Come on, Niggers. Get out in that field and get to work."
The group of people all got to their feet and left the confines of the cellar. They all went into different directions to do their days work. Some went into the field; others went to the stables, Allensworth headed for the flowers that outlined the house. His job was to mend the plants around the house. He got down to his knees and began his work.
He was so entranced in his work that he didn't notice a person had approached him until they spoke.
"Those flowers are looking mighty fine." The woman said.
Jermaine was slightly startled by the voice but he recognized it immediately. He moved his torso slightly to the right and looked up to the woman standing behind him. The sun was bright and beating down on him causing him to hold up a hand to shade his eyes. The woman wore a Victorian styled regency dress that came down to just past her ankles.
"Thank you, Miss Elizabeth. I try my best with these flowers."
Miss Elizabeth smiled at him as she placed a comforting smile on Jermaine's shoulder before proceeding on her way. He watched her until she was out of sight before getting back to work.
1941
The cool Pacific breeze felt refreshing against Christine's face as she headed to church that was only two blocks down the road. She held her daughter Zoe closer to her as she walked. Christine was trying to calm her child down. The little one was crying and had been since six this morning. Something was bothering the small child and Christine couldn't get her to calm down.
She lightly patted the child's back as she walked down the sidewalk. She passed a man in a bathrobe who stepped out to get his newspaper off the front porch. A woman from another house came out in a red dress. She took one look at Christine and waved before she approached. The woman was dark haired and slender. She looked like a pin up girl that the soldiers would have in their bunks. She recalled on one more than one occasion the whistles and cat calls they get when they walk by the sailors.
"Hey, Chris." The woman said.
"Hey, Kate. How are you this morning?"
"Wonderful. Jake proposed to me last night." She said giddily, showing off her ring. "He's wants to take me aboard and show me around the Arizona."
"That's wonderful." Christine said with a one armed hug and taking a glance at her friend's ring.
"Speaking of men, when is your man going to move down here?"
"He's moving down here later this month. He's transferring from his job at the station in San Francisco to the one here. It'll be easier for Zoe to be around her father all the time once he does move down here. Plus we won't have to write each other letters every other day."
Zoe's crying slowed to a whimper as Christine talked about her father. That topic seemed to calm the little one at least for a short bit.
Christine heard a slight constant humming sound. She tilted her head upward to the azure stratus cloud filled sky and noticed a large amount of planes in the sky. There were so many, that it looked like an infestation. Christine looked slightly confused. "Since when does the Navy do aircraft drills this early on a Sunday?"
"They don't."
"Then are they launching some offensive against someone?"
Kate shook her head. "No, but Jake says there is a possibility of war and the Japanese are threatening." Kate said as she peered closely at the planes. "And I don't think those are Navy planes."
Christine looked back at Kate and slightly tightened her grip on Zoe, whose crying started up again, as if she knew something horrible was coming. Christine didn't like the feeling she was getting from that comment. "Then who would they be?"
Kate peered more closely at the planes. "Our planes have stars on them. Those planes have red circles on them. They're Japs."
Christine's eyes widened and that's when the bombs fell.
