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The Enemy
Drab olive duffel bulges on white chenille bedspread, waiting. Shaving, questioning in my reflection, I nick the curve of my jaw. Blood drips into sink.
“Billy, come down for breakfast!,” Ma yells. I already know it’s blueberry pancakes by the aroma wafting up the stairwell. They’re my favorite, but knowing I’ll be rumbling down our pothole-filled road on the bus in an hour has made me queasy.
Jean and I said our good-byes last night. I couldn’t bear the thought of seeing her tears as I boarded. Ma’s will be bad enough.
I didn’t sign on for this. We’re headed to a northern city, where we are expected to club, tase, pepper-spray and worse, people in our own country. He, our Commander-in-Chief, calls them the enemy.
To distract myself, I keep thinking, what will I do there without my hands upon your summer face?
[144 words]
Melissa Lemay is today’s host of dVerse’ Prosery. Melissa would like us to write a 144-word prose story using the following line:
What will I do there
without my hands upon
your summer face?
— from, “Oh, Umbrellas,” by Jeffrey Hermann.
Tao Talk 
I love that you’ve written from a male character’s perspective, Lisa, and it’s very convincing, as is the contrast of colour in ‘drab olive duffel bulges on white chenille bedspread’ followed by ‘blood drips into sink’. I also like the anticipation of ‘rumbling down our pothole-filled road on the bus in an hour’ that makes Billy queasy. But I do not like what he is on his way to do!
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Kim, thank you very much for your feedback.
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My pleasure, Lisa.
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there is so much discomfort in this story, all cleverly imaged
Nice one
much♡love
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Gillena, thank you very much <3
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What a great story you told! I cannot say my heart doesn’t go out to the poor soldier that would like nothing more than to skip this all together.
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V, they are part of us, so much more us than the elite. They are expendable to the upper crust. Society has become so limiting on earning a living wage that many go into the service just to survive. I’m sure they didn’t sign on for this, unless they are very troubled. Who wants to brutalize their people :(
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You’ve given life to the conflict so many of those called up must feel. (K)
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<3
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Wonderfully written. I feel his queasiness, his unease.
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Thank you, Lisa. I truly feel awful for him and for his loved ones.
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A bleak scene you’ve painted, and a point of view I hadn’t yet stopped to consider, that those dispatched to these cities might not support the orders themselves.
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Melissa, I’m glad it gave you another p.o.v. I’ve had a lot of relatives, male and female, who were in the military and not one of them would ever have wanted to be called up on this kind of duty :(
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Well done! 👏🏾👏🏾
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Thanks, Stew.
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Like you mentioned elsewhere, the muse took you elsewhere for this write! I like it. 👏
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Shaun, thank you.
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A clever perspective and a combination of the day to day and what sounds like an apocalypse. Jae
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Jae, thanks very much.
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Politics aside, the comfort of the pancakes he obviously won’t enjoy. I liked that insert.
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Thanks much, Margaret.
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Thought-provoking, Lisa. It makes me wonder what goes through the minds of those deployed to the streets of their own country, “just following orders.”
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I came away thinking that Billy isn’t just queasy about potholes affecting his stomach, queasy about the role, and the tears hold hope, he feels. What a mess you highlight Li.
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Thank you for the close look, Paul. Yes :(
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