The Fort

My brother and I had a secret fort at the side of the house.  It was under an overgrown bush, where the branches arched over us like an opened umbrella, and the size was just perfect for two little kids.  When we hid there no one could see us, which was important, because we knew that war was fast approaching.  It may have looked dirty and unappealing to most, but it  was perfect for hiding, for storing a cache of weapons (rocks, dirt clods, and crab apples), and it allowed us to feel prepared for the danger that could present itself at any time.

The signs were all around us. The adults talked of war sometimes, thinking that we were too busy playing to notice, that our young minds could not follow the complexity of those conversations.  They shushed us when certain reports came on the news, and watched in silence trying not to betray emotion.  The words meant little to me: Viet Cong, body count, land mines.  But the images of destruction, fear, and fire are still alive in my mind.  I saw things that I did not see in my own community, things that I would not have dreamed of if it weren't for those news broadcasts. 

What if we go blind, I asked my brother.  Like that boy with burn marks on his face.  We vowed to go the whole day with blindfolds on just to practice, but we kept cheating and peeking.  What about that child who had lost a leg below the knee?  How could that happen?  Holding up one foot and hopping on the other, we concluded that we wouldn't last too long with just one foot to depend on. 

Local churches began sponsoring refugee families.  As more came, surely the war would follow them, I reasoned.  In my preschool class, a new little girl appeared.  She never spoke to us, and she never smiled.  She played alone, building villages of blocks and quietly destroying them, the whoosh of falling bombs just a whisper that escaped from between her solemn lips.  

One dark evening when the news was on again, I found myself fascinated by the light of the TV dancing across my parents faces.  There were those words again: Ho Chi Minh, Tet, body count...  When the reporter signed off, my mother remarked to my dad: maybe the kids should not be watching these news reports anymore.  It was too late for that, I knew; I already heard the cracks of gunfire in my dreams.