The Price of Oil, Part I

The nurse ordered her to push, push, push in her best proper voice and linen balled in red fists knotted and sweat falls from red face knotted while Billy, head first, tugged and yanked by nurse's proper hands, emerges, gently laid upon the blood soaked sand motionless in the sulfur haze, almost well-behaved amongst the rifle clatter and bewildered screams - get down! get down! get down! while Billy breathes slowly, undisturbed, his eyes closed with new mom gently caressing matted, cark curls, her fingers, no longer knotted, extended, Billy's tiny hands and infant fingers grip the plastic ribbing around the rifle barrel smeared in stickiness that flows out from below Billy and onto sand, puddling, his lips chapped and parted, suckling as new mom exhausted weeps in relief of two arms and two legs and everything okay as she holds him, hurting for him, everything that might happen, everything that will happen, and she drifts off to slumber, mother and child peacefully spent in soft pretty colors and the soft murmur of the television as the sedan with government plates at the curb and a Marine in dress blues (Oh, God) stands plastic in the doorway and uses his best proper voice (Oh God, not Billy, Oh God) to regretfully tell her, and uses surprised hands to catch her when her legs regretfully cannot hold her and she sobs on the floor like a mother who outlived her son, exhausted as the day Billy was born. Screw this war.