Explosions echoed through the woods, dirt scattered through the air like millions of locusts. Wounded bodies layered the forest floor. Friends who were sharing stories of home by the fire the evening before, lay dead. Trapped on the other side for others’ freedom. The dust settled as the hundreds of bodies were engulfed by the orange haze of the sunrise. Birds chirped in the trees as if the world had just been shook by indifference. Their songs rose above the crowns of the trees, a funeral song for those gone but not forgotten.

As the survivors boarded the boat back to the homeland with the knowledge that nothing was ever going to be the same, they looked at the beach, absorbing the sight of the footsteps of their companions who had gone forward but did not come back. They clasped their hats over their hearts in memory of the feeling they had of the freedom on the shore, freedom on the horizon. That freedom began flying high, wings spread,but those wings broke as hope burst around them.

As that hope burst into millions of sparkling pieces and fell to the ocean around them, so did tears enough to fill those seas they traveled. Camped out on the deck, by the light of lanterns, they gazed above at the sea of stars, the same sky that their loved ones were looking at what felt like oceans away, reaching out…

Back home, “Uncle Sam wants YOU” was as incessant as a toddler wanting a toy. This cry for help inspired the efforts of the citizens to  encourage their gardens to flourish and supply the future of our freedom fighters.

A country united in hardship, working the fight for freedom, but still seeing the hope at the end of the tunnel, not knowing their hard work would be obliterated like an old, forgotten photograph. 

As time has marched on, judgement has spread like a disease, turning the skies gray as ash. People now worry more about the brands plastered on their hearts, completely scorning what had been fought for from the beginning. The number of followers who only see the character people portray has become more important than their true form.

A country now unrecognizable to those who fought before yearns for that forgotten unity.