The Meadow Literary and Art Journal 2011

a reason was given to why they executed the prisoners. And it wasn’t just the larger amount of women this time around or the voices of a few prisoners that sounded like adolescents. Something seeped into the air that night that even to a veteran executioner like Dae-Ho just felt wrong. Dae-Ho remembered the ride home that night. The soldiers didn’t exchange a word in the military SUV nor did they listen to the buzz of static clogging up the music on the aging radio. Every soldier who took part in the execution sat with their heads bowed and bobbling. The only noises were that of wrenching metal as they hooked tight around corners and the rubber pummeling the dirt roads as they bounced over unpaved shortcuts to get home. They dropped Dae-Ho off in front of his house and he immediately began feeling lightheaded. All he thought about was changing out of his uniform and resting his face on his fiancée’s supple chest. Though his fiancée never returned home that night. She had gotten abducted in a government raid earlier in the evening and then taken to an undisclosed location. A bag was put over her head, then she was shot, and shot to death. His propaganda conscience had always told him that for the stability of the country voices had to be sacrificed. That silencing one or two to avoid riots or rebellion was the small price that had to be paid. And he himself never lied to his family about the goings-on inside the government’s secret police or even to his fiancée about prostitutes. He found that the best way not to lie is not to say anything at all. Secret service soldiers like Dae-Ho were encouraged and an implication off of coerced to keep quiet about the executions. They took an oath of silence with their hands over their chests and the almighty flag waving above them. But after perhaps killing his own fiancée a bitter aftertaste lingered on his tongue every time he saluted or sang the national anthem. An excess of profanity came to mind each time and for him it felt a bit like swallowing his own vomit. Then he realized he couldn’t silence himself anymore. It was all going to come spewing out and Dae-Ho knew he needed to reach that border or else anything he had to say would fall on deaf ears. The skid of tires, as sudden as it was sharp, screeched from the side of the road and ground the gravel and pebbles into crackles and pops. Dae-Ho whipped forward as if he sat in the vehicle that came to a sudden stop at the side of the road. He lunged for the boy, grabbing his tiny hand and dragging his seemingly weightless body towards him. Though the boy’s stubby bare feet couldn’t keep up. He tripped, skidding his knees and stumping his toe against the litter of stones, snapped twigs and their protruding thorns, threatening with sharpness. The boy stared at the thirty year old soldier through a screen tears. His lips shuddered like bubbles from the spout of a kettle rearing to burst into noise. Then the whimpering started, short and sudden breathing like an engine that wouldn’t start, beginning with a breath and ended with a sniffle. Dae-Ho panicked and reached blindly for his rifle. His gaze in the theMeadow 113

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