Reality’s Dying Make-believe

“Will it ever stop, Popa?”

A pause, then…

“Both our lives are made up of reality and make-believe.”

Such was the pause of this father and daughter

Working the night shift in a bakery of bread,

The sustenance that helps sustain the city’s defenders.

“Come to the roof with me, Daughter?”

A smile, then, “Will we see the stars tonight?”

“Perhaps, if the sky is not lit up with other light.”

“Come,” he prompts as he reaches for her hand. 

“We have our imagination to make believe, don’t we?

A child’s smile,

A father’s nod.

He leads her up the stairs to the roof

Overlooking what’s left of the city.

They sit, staring into the distance.

“At this hour, Daughter, if one listens long and patiently,

One can hear the merging of tank treads tracking over rubble,

The sound of siren-warning.

What wasn’t heard in the distance was the child’s cry of fear and her begging for help.

Only the artillery bombardment filled the anxious air surrounding war.

On the war-torn street of smoke and fire,

No one sees the small child

Leaping out the window as more ordinance shatters the building.

Her flaming night clothes are unseen,

Her screams for help swallowed by concussions of shell after shell,

Missile after missile,

Explosion after explosion

Sending reality up in smoke,

Its rise dissipating,

Even as it leaps higher still.

The stars sparkle helplessly,

As if this world of Picasso’s Guernica

Might be cleansed by the clouds of the Arcadian rescue call

Pouring their billowy hearts out with the passion of their lightening

And the downpour of empyrean tears.

“We’re safe, Papa?”

“For now, Daughter,” as he grips her small hand tighter.