The Vacant Chair
“He opened his eyes to find the unfamiliar scenery rolling like a green carpet outside the windows of the boxcar he occupied. In an instant, he remembered why he was there. Accompanying his brother’s body back to Michigan for burial. For a moment, time stood still as he struggled to breathe. He held Mitch’s hat in his clenched hands, the pain more than he could bear. Fragmented images swept past him, of screaming shells, Mitch’s agonized expression, the feel of him convulsing in his arms in the throes of death.
Angry tears pricked his eyes and he plunged shaking fingers into his hair. The pressure in his chest was suffocating, grief crashing over him in relentless, pounding waves. Mitch’s pleading voice echoed in his head.
Justin…help me… He couldn’t bear knowing he would carry that anguished sound of his brother’s voice inside him forever. Sobs clawed at him. He fought them back, along with the urge to smash everything in that boxcar to vent his fury, his hopelessness.
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