Excerpt from an Enemy's Journal

The Vigil

I watch as sun slips across the sky, its light illuminating the red atmosphere. Gases and pollution have settled heavily across our planet, aiding in our plight of self destruction, slowly we are killing ourselves.

I pull the shutters together, they snap groaning in protest. I hang my head as the black ominous fabric tumbles down, it does not cover the entire window. The material is called curtains. For my people it is the marker, foretelling a frightful outcome.

The shack I occupy with others today, is preparing for the death watch.

It is true I live on a planet slowly dying, its own dark ill-omened death. For the most part it is one we created in haste, or out of desire to live and prosper. Mining haphazardly without first examining our own out come, it is something I would like to say is not part of the problem, but that would be romanticizing things.

I feel helpless as chilling fingers of the wind find their hold and reach in through the cracks. I see the flame of the canwll corfe –corpse candle- moving. The flame is taken into invisible fingers it sputters and smolders licking for oxygen. But the flame will not be immediately extinguished.

Tonight death will come as a guest and leave with company.

I draw in a ragged breath, as I hear the weeping of others. They are sentenced to suffer the same faith as I. More flames flicker wavering but not yet struggling to breath.

A woman wails for her young daughter. She will see no more. Another sobs for a husband in the Spectra army. She has not seen him in nearly two years, nor will she.

I bow down settling on the bitter cold boards. I rest my head against a cot. My thoughts sweep over the life I once had. My husband as well as a son will greet me shortly. I do not feel sad though, for I long to see them and I know my daughter in law is safe in assembly plant. My grandson Kim, I must pause as I try to recall his innocent eyes. I try hard to recall when the last time was I witnessed his laughter.

Laughter, that's what I want to be greeted with when I die, I sigh. I am so tired of the weeping, the moaning, and the fear of dying.

Soon enough we will all die, but for some it is more sudden.

My faith, no our faith was sealed today in the mines. My body has grown tired as I shift, to sit and watch the rise and fall of a friend's chest. She like I was poisoned, while working the mines.

I watch as the candle flames flicker. It is the wind courting the flame, whispering sweet nothings, promising unbridled love affairs.

The woman I watch, her breath heaves, her lungs are shuttering. Very soon I fear she will succumb to the bacteria.

I pause to recall how I saw my own mother fall to the dreaded plague that began viciously killing our kind. Then I witnessed the departure, of my own husband and the others in his mining group.

I sigh as I hear the recount of our mining expedition. The voice belongs to a male. His voice carries tragically.

"We all knew of the worries of hitting a pocket of bacterium, as we processed the mine. It boiled up as a dark cloud, like coal dust."

A second voice chimed in picking up the thread of conversation.

"Frank was the lucky one, he died instantly."

Another voice joined telling their part of the story thread.

"He would now be with us awaiting his death sentence, if he hadn't run when the Hazmat meter sounded."

I close my eyes trying hard to close out the contamination control squad. The starch white suits, the dreaded report to an already final deed. I froze as the echo of the shot rang out. It was too late to cry out. The hollow point had already penetrated his skull. He was dead and simply a mere hare's breath from hitting the ground before any of us heard the explosion of gunfire.

Long haunting shadows cast across my hands. I look up to see three candle flames caught hypnotically in an icy dance with the wind. Three more sputter protesting the ever present fingers of death.

I try to cast my gaze about the room, to give the others reassurance. It is getting harder to look at them. The lesions have begun. Large coal like patches has begun to blot my own face and skin. I can only imagine what my lungs must look like now.

Breathing comes in ragged gasps. Giving it no thought I wipe at my own mouth, as I see dark spittle, come forth from my patient. Very soon she will surrender.

A candle flame flickers, wrapped in its dance with death. The glow grows weak. I hear a child's laughter, and watch as the flame expires……

ende