Writing exercises - September 2010

On war, and heroes.

A tsunami of war.
The Harrys and Henries, the Johnnies and Alberts; whose hair their mothers had smoothed down with a lick of her hand; now lay staring in horror at the unfolding war.
Their eyes do not blink.
A crab creeps sideways, oblivious to the rat-a-tat shell fire stuttering and exploding above. Unaware of the growing red-stained sea, he feeds on our youth, and he too, doesn’t blink.
At home, in Australia, on a summer’s afternoon, a mother twists her hanky into rope.
Softly she calls his name, just the once.
She knows.