Daily Casket Express

Greetings,

The daily Casket Express Metro pulled up at the central station between two platforms. On the "Departures," platform stood young military boys in battle dress; helmets, gas masks, water canteens, with weapons locked and loaded. A sergeant at arms played a bagpipe dirge.

On the "Arrivals" platform were strong black eyed men in front of 1,000 weeping women.

The orange and black doors opened on both sides. The soldiers rammed their spines to attention, eyes straight ahead as notes floated.

The express was five cars long and each car held 100 crude wooden caskets. The strong men spit on their hands and moved forward. As the boy soldiers sang, "We're off to the front, we're going to meet our destiny,"  and their wives, sisters and daughters waved goodbye the men hauled out the wooden boxes.

Teams of weeping mothers, daughters and sisters surged forward, pulling and grasping at wooden boxes as the men stacked them against walls. The women were seeking clarification, an I.D., an old photo, a necklace perhaps, a shred of evidence, a glass eye, some visual epiphany.

They came because they were called by some faceless totalitarian desk jockey handed the inevitable task of notifying next-of-kin so they came to claim.

The wives, mothers, daughters and sisters cried tears of blood. This captivated the audience of passive transparent heavily indoctrinated raw stoned ambivalent authorities hiding behind a pile of shredded documents containing treaties and falsified bills of lading.

When the men finished unloading the caskets, the soldiers marched into the cars,  the doors closed and it departed.

So it goes on the daily Casket Express.

Peace.