I introduced Robert in my response to last week's Visual Dare from Angela at Anonymous Legacy. Angela's photo this week, and her suggestion that we keep the bombing of the Boston Marathon in mind as we wrote, prompted this continuation.
Remembrance
Robert carried the last box out to his car, grateful that the coming summer’s rest. As he ambled past empty classrooms, he stopped at a door and stared at neat rows of chairs. His vision swam. He saw a child in each seat.
He did not know these children, they were not his students. In the front row he saw several black children, their clothing rags and their stomachs bloated with starvation. Behind them sat boys holding automatic rifles, their uniforms tiny. Other chairs held children from Haiti, America, Nicaragua. On the fringes, with standing room only and colors faded to sepia, were Indian children dressed for serving their sahibs. He spotted the mark of a Jew and looked closer, hoping, if hope was the right word in this room, to see Martha and Peter.
He blinked and the room was empty. Those children would never need a chair.
