Dark Day Dreams by James Hawthorne

Author:James Hawthorne
Language: eng
Format: azw3, epub
Published: 2016-05-31T04:00:00+00:00

The Cost of Caring

Mitch Palmer staggered into the kitchen and made a cup of coffee. He’d always joked with friends that he was never really sure reality was reality until there was some caffeine in his blood and brain.

His wife Lilah was still in bed. She had never been a morning person and told him early in their relationship she would rather sleep another half an hour in the morning and then scramble around getting ready for work if necessary.

The next part of Mitch’s AM routine was sitting down on the leather couch in the living room and turning on the television. He liked to see what was happening in the news…sometimes he checked a New York station but more often than not it was MSNBC or CNN. He preferred stories about politics or war in the Middle East to what he thought of as the drip-drip-drip perspective of local news…two dead in a Queens robbery attempt, a warning about swimming at a particular beach, a cute story about a cat that can play Scrabble.

There was breaking news. A mass shooting at a church in some suburb near Albuquerque. Mitch felt his heart start pounding, it seemed like there had been so many of these incidents the past few years.

The host of the broadcast was summarizing the story so far. “Authorities there in New Mexico are telling us this terrible crime was perpetrated by two gunmen and both were shot dead just a few minutes ago by a SWAT team. The count so far is twenty-four dead and probably twice that number injured. The reason there were so many people at the church on a weekday was due to the fact a conference on national immigration policies was taking place.”

Mitch was having a hard time focusing. He felt bad (just like always) about the carnage. But he was also thinking about what a mad crush he had on the blonde woman on the screen telling him the story. So many of the news anchors these days looked like they should be featured in the Sports Illustrated swim suit issue.

The object of his desire continued her report. “We’re hearing that the two gunmen were wearing flak jackets with a particular kind of patch on the shoulder. It’s the one representing an organization called AFO, which stands for Americans for Order. Our research shows this is a relatively small Southwest based white supremacist group that has taken a militant stand against illegal immigrants and anybody in this country who is thought to be aiding them in any way. They believe the Catholic Church here in America has been complicit in helping undocumented Latinos not only make their way to this country but also stay here. I’m guessing they saw this conference as a ripe target.”

Lilah trudged into the room, her light brown hair standing up comically. She yawned and noticed what was happening on the television screen. She said, “What’s going on?”

Mitch took a sip of coffee and replied, “Just another mass shooting.

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