It had been the whole time. "We didn't start the fire". When she first heard it in high school. Her civics teacher told her what it meant. And it felt so true.
Marianna was bold in expressing her opinions. That history had always been violent. She would try to be
nonchalant
about it. Until it became who she was.
Then the world began to fall apart more. She was older. No longer felt that nonchalant attitude.
fear
struck her deep into her bones. She drank her second coffee thinking about how nice it would be to be back up in space right now. There was no war in space. There was that one time when the SWAT came up and there had almost been a conflict. But it never got to the point where gunshots were fired.
Spacecity
was peaceful. There was only one ruler. Earth had many. Or one could say no rulers. Just a variety of players duking it out. The rest of the world caught in between. Either stuck or ground down.
Images of the flag in front of school, waving the in wind came into her mind as she closed her eyes. Then she saw Keith's face. She had thought about him before from time to time. But she had never saw his face in her mind like that. That was weird she thought. Weird enough that she couldn't stop thinking about it for the rest of the day.
As soon as she got home, she went to her laptop to find Keith online. What was he up to these days?