Bring Out Your Dead

“Bring out your dead!” The creaking wooden wagon rolled along the muddy dirt path. As it passes each closed door and curtain drawn window, a mother’s sobs are heard echoing throughout the dreary town. Nearing the end of the road, if one could call it such, the doorknob of an old and once abandoned house rattled as if someone were struggling to unlock the door. At the sound, the wagon driver stopped. The rusty knob twisted right and left and right again and then suddenly the door swung open on its loose hinges, scraping across the porch until slamming against the outer wall. With a dusty breeze blowing, the driver looked on at the scene behind a covering hand.

Standing in the small, rectangular doorway was a young girl no older than seven. Her brown hair was so ragged and tangled that one might have mistaken it for a tumbleweed. In her reddened eyes, was a type of pain that couldn’t be fixed. Beneath her tear-stained sleeve, a tiny hand held tightly onto another. The large, calloused hand belonged to a young man that laid motionless on the ground just inside the crooked house.