Pray for rain

I always liked storms. They seemed to fill the air with power; the far off rumbling of thunder, rain pattering down on the street, the wind blowing through the trees. The artillery shells hitting a few miles east of us sounded a lot like that. It brought a small, sad smile to my face.

I couldn't distinguish it from the real thunder. Sooty clouds were moving in from the west, rolling down out of the mountains. I knew that somewhere down over there people were dying; shrapnel shredding their guts, sonic blasts blowing out their eardrums. It didn't really bother me anymore, which made me doubt sometimes if it ever had in the first place. Just as long as the shells weren't falling down on me.

If there was one good thing about fighting in the middle of suburbs, it was the abundant food. Pantries stuffed with canned food, bags of sweets, salt, pepper, flour. Batteries for radios and flashlights, and always a nice couch or bed to sleep on. It was strange to think about how these homes were before the war. Full of life, blaring TV's, kids playing video games and parents sitting on the porch reading a book.

Prayers for rain were on all our lips. They'd run incendiary bombs downtown two days ago, and the unchecked fires were growing closer. That was one of the many bad parts about fighting in suburbs; it didn't matter how many comforts you had if we all burned.

I watched as the incoming winds blew the sooty stacks of smoke away from us. The sun was going down, and the glow of the fires began to emerge. The first drop of rain fell onto my head, leaving a small spot of heavy wetness.

The world moves on, even in the midst of a war like this one. People die under an uncaring sky. I saw a pickup truck with a family inside blown to pieces by a mine once. A whole family gone in an instant, and the sky was a pure, pale blue, full of fluffy clouds. It was a beautiful day.

And yet the guy next to me prayed for their souls that night. I didn't say anything to him; why bother? If there is a god up there somewhere, i hope he sends me to hell. I'll probably like the company better.