The Telegram

[Stinky]

Life goes on.
It has to.
Two sons gone to a war that I know nothing of.
Every day, an awakening to a blinding flash of terror.
Waking earlier day after day.
Fear is my companion.
Jenny holds to my apron.
Six years old, knowing but not understanding.
One brother taken by measles.
Two, just gone.
My husband also gone.
Long ago.
His new Mistress, a bottle.
He is gone, but still here.
Unable to cope with the loss of our son.
Three letters I have had from France.
Citing cheer and expectation.
But I know my Boys, and I read different letters.
Fear being overwritten by bravado in their letter to Mum.
Thank you Boys, but I know.
I see the News, full of Glory and Victory.
Trenches being taken.
But little of the lives taken.
Another night of sweats that only a Mum can know.
My children’s future out of my hands.
My children’s lives out of my hands.
My children’s lives decided by a bullet.
Another letter.
Opened with tremulous hands.
Read through fearful tears.
And they are coming home on leave in two weeks.
The pain of happiness is not really so different from that of fear.
Another knock to the door.
Scrabbling hands in my eagerness.
Sad faced, he hands me the Telegram.
Blackness.