you’re not alone in this [Edison]

“Hey Eddie?”

The boy turned, lowering the knife in his hand. He’d spent the better part of the afternoon butchering one of the last bulls, and when his little brother walked up, he was just tryin’ to get the last remnants of meat off of a carcass that’d already been cut clean. Every last bit of flesh to feed the rebellion, soldiers and displaced alike.

”Yeah, bud?”

Frankie looked all kinds of hopeful, and Edison envied him his ignorance. Bright-eyed and smiling, the seven-year-old boy didn’t know much about trouble and rebellion.

Edison, anxious as he was, couldn’t quite forget it.

”Can we go out into the field and run with the calves?”

The tiniest flicker of a smile pulled at the corner of Edison’s mouth, and then he pulled the young boy into a messy hug. The young boy squealed with laughter, trying to squirm away.

“Gross! Your hands are icky.” He managed to wriggle out of his brother’s arms, wiping dramatically at his shirt and faking annoyance. They always played this game: Edison pretending to be joyous, Frankie pretending he could ever be mad at anything.

The moment settled into a brief quiet, and Edison’s smile faded. He thought of the bombs that dropped just the other day, the Peacekeeper spy he’d killed and buried in the yard, the grieving faces of the families who took up residence in their other barn. Even though their farm was a long ways out, secluded enough to keep from being damaged, they still got the remnants of the hurt.

Edison wanted only to keep his little brother safe.

”Another time, bud.”