#92 Brighter

by Sarah Agnew

It burst from behind the trees for the first time in weeks, an orange ball extinguishing the clouds.

“It’s beautiful,” she whispered. I squinted up at it, but I could only see smoke swirling across the sky, obscuring our view of that strange light.

“I don’t get it,” I responded. “What’s so great about the stupid sun?”

She shook her head, but couldn’t take her eyes off of it. “It’s not stupid, stupid,” she answered lightly, but stayed quiet for a minute. “It just reminds me of how it used to be.”

“How what used to be?”

“Life,” she muttered. She tore her eyes from the light and adjusted the gun slung across her shoulder.

“You remember that?” I couldn’t remember anything from before the war. I didn’t think anyone could.

She shrugged. “Only sometimes. Little things, you know? Like these blue flowers that my mom used to weave into her hair.” A smile ghosted across her cracked lips. “They used to dance in our kitchen and my dad would kiss her, right where those flowers were, and they were happy. I remember when people were happy.”

In the silence, a grenade exploded and we knew they were getting closer. She shook her head again, this time to snap out of her memories. “Come on,” she muttered, but I grabbed her arm.

“We have time.”

She gave me a small, grateful smile. As we sat in that clearing watching the sun set, I knew she was, for a moment, happy.