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A quote: “Suspicion is the companion of mean souls, and the bane of all good society.” ~~ Thomas Paine
I’ll start with a story …
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I didn’t move when Lawsee sat down next to me in the breakroom, cup of black in her hand. She leans over, a brief glance at my cup of hot water.
“Cleanser”, I muttered. No coffee rations for our kind.
I can feel her giving me the once over, but it’s clear I cut my own hair, my clothing nothing but basic issue. I’ve gotten good at this and she wants to brag.
“Cooper’s gone,” Lawsee’s eyes shine, “Found sugar and butter. And I discovered it.”
I could’ve escaped. But I stayed. To take care of obscenities like Lawsee.
Soon.
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Now, it’s your turn.
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. featured image, cropped, Adobe Stock standard license.
Cameron says: The men sprinted away from the killings, the sounds of the dying ringing in their ears. They looked back and to their horror saw that one of the soldiers was following them.
Desperate to survive, they crawled through a fence and hoped they had enough of a head start to get away and come back with reinforcements. The men on the other side of that fence ended them quicker than they had ended their own victims.
The communists got the purge they wanted. But they didn’t know that Americans would be the ones purging them until it was too late.
Even after all these years, the winds of the Mojave still carry the cries of the victims of those dark days. The old Soviet Union had the icy hell of Siberia to send their political prisoners, but we had a hot one, with miles of desert sands to kill you just as dead with dehydration.
When I look at the tangled fragments of wire, I remember that desperate day. We’d made careful plans — one of the guys was Special Forces and had done a tour of duty in the Sandbox, so he had the desert survival skills to get us through to his connections.
The dust storm should’ve covered us, but someone ratted us out. I still can hear the screams. If it weren’t for Vand, none of us would’ve gotten out, but he knew how to throw our pursuers off the trail.
He didn’t tell us he’d been wounded in the escape. By the time we finally got to the safehouse, he was already on death’s door. If we’d had a full Class I trauma center, we might’ve saved him. What we had was a retired veterinarian who did his best with instruments meant for treating horses and cattle. We buried him under a Joshua tree, with a plain flat stone because we didn’t dare put any mark on it that might connect that place with us.
Two weeks later the whole crooked Administration came crashing down.
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