His face remained impassive as swollen eyes watched the flag slowly drop to half-staff. The air was still and thick, the red, white and blue hanging lifelessly on a bed of ashen clouds. A sea of gray obscured the morning sun and cast the entire campus of his old high school in a monochromatic pallor. His head lowered and he shut his eyes.
He saw her face. Her picture had been all over the news and her name had been on the tongues of everyone in town over the last few days. Mention of her had invariably been accompanied by the words “hometown hero” or “fallen soldier,” but all he saw was the girl he grew up with. The girl that used to tease him mercilessly whenever she beat him in a race. The girl he had shared his first kiss with at their senior prom. The girl that went away after high school and would never return.
As the air began to move in erratic gusts of wind, he looked up with damp eyes and watched the flag wave in heaving spasms. Behind it, the swollen clouds hung heavy with the weight of water, churning violently and threatening to unleash a downpour.