I Stood
By Kathleen Tonn

It was a rainy, grey day. The rain turned the dirt road, a mixture of silt and clay, to a quaky mud. The type of mud that turns your ten size boots to twelve size boots. There I stood. Droplets of rain running off the brim of my hat to cascade down my nose. Was it a blessing to stand in the downpour? Most would say absolutely not. My mind was of a different point of view.

I was waiting. I was waiting for a hero to pass by. Not a living hero, but a dead hero. A hero that saved a whole detachment of broken-down, fatigued and hungry men who were outflanked by their enemy. This dead hero created a diversion that saved the detachment from destruction. He did it in the most benign way, but his effort afforded results that could not be diminished.

No one else stood with me. I was alone in the street waiting for the wagon that carried the hero's coffin. Perhaps...