Michael Ramirez Gants

            Breakfast ended, and I took the stairs two at a time to my room.  It would be Halloween soon, I thought.  I would be Batman.  My mom came up behind me and put out her hand to stop me before I reached the top. Surprised, I turned to look at her. I stood still. I looked to my dad who had followed my mom up the stairs, asking a question with my eyes. Silence.  I looked up at my mom. She looked so sad and so loving. I swallowed and whispered, “What is it, Mom?” She rustled my hair. “I just got a call,” she began. Then, she stopped, she looked down and she began to cry. “Mom? What’s happening?” They looked down. Then mom bent down, looked me in the eye and said, “Do you remember how John from next door went into the army?”

            Of course, I remembered. I remembered Easter a year ago. I woke up early and the sun was shining through my bedroom window. I peeked out and saw John hiding Easter eggs filled with sweets for my Easter-egg hunt. The grass was specked with blue, red and orange plastic eggs gleaming in the corners. I wondered what each one had in it. Was it coins? Chocolates? Jelly beans? He was tall and strong. His blonde hair gleamed in the sun. His sister, Becca, whispered something and pointed at me. I ducked below the window. I remembered making mud pies in our sandbox together. We would all be covered in mud and we would rush inside after we finished to tell our parents to come out and see what we had done, mud dripping all over the floor.  I remembered that he was the only one that would go on the big rides with me at Story Land. We screamed like girls when the drop came.

            My mom went on, “He was killed in Iraq, Michael.” It was silent, except for my breathing, unsteady, heaving. I pushed through her arms and ran up to my room. “Why?” I asked the air. I imagined him all alone in a desert, bullets burrowed into his chest, shot from a little boy who never knew him. He looks up, sees the little boy, the boy looks down, John gasps… nothing. I punched my pillow, I hit the wall, I threw down the Bible that was sitting on my chest and a page ripped. It said, “Ask and it shall be given you.” I asked for John back. G-d was silent.