      
                    Shall I Pray For Death  
                             By
                        The Stranger 

     Slowly they began to appear from out of their houses into
the streets.  Their tired eyes tentivly searched across the
village like a hand reaching into the dark.  Their ears ringing
as they stepped out into the center of the village and listened
to the sound of quiet.  For the first time since sunrise, there
was silence.  No one spoke as they walked like zombies closer to
one another, looking over the recognizable faces of neighbors who
seemed so much younger only days before.  
     One man, the leader of the village, stepped out into the
center of the circle they had created.  His dark skin tanned by
the dirt that flew in the wind, his hair once blond now black as
a cats eye with filth.  Without saying a word he looked at them
one by one, looking over their faces and questioning them with a
gaze.  No one spoke as he counted each one in his head though he
nevered remember how many there were suppose to be.  It changed
every day.
     A tear slowly crawled through the dirt on his face as he
yelled to them "My God, we are all here.  Thank God we are all
here."  And they screamed, and they yelled, and they cried at the
news.  Each one taking another into their arms and holding them
tight like a rope that has tied you to life.  Woman and men
falling down to their knees, praying to God, as they drenched
themselves in the dirt, feeling so alive, so alive!  Every parent
looked into the eyes of their children and began crying with joy
at the sight.  The fathers took the children into their arms and
held them with all of their might as if they would never let them
go.  Mothers stared up into the sky openly weeping and screaming
thanks to the heavens above.  
     The leader yelled over them "Look around you, do you see any
one missing?"  They stopped their celebrations suddenly and each
one turned to the other searching over names and faces in their
minds.  A minute crept by, then two.  No one spoke.  They all
looked back to the leader with grins on their faces.  He smiled
back and at once the celebration began again.  The yelling, the
screaming, the crying.  Each person never believing they would
make it through another day.
     And off in the distance there was a slight noise that they
all heard at the same time as it rattled through their bones. 
The high yell of a trains whistle.  And as sudden as the
celebration began, the celebration ended with the first sound of
the trains whistle.
     The train was on its way.
     They could hear it lumbering down the old tracks from a mile
away.  The earth trembled underneath their feet as the train drew
closer and closer to the village.  No one spoke, no one moved. 
They only waited for the train to arrive.  
     First it was only a speck, like an image you see pass by the
corner of your eyes.  Then as it grew closer it became a black
dot.  Then it became a black and gray monster with smoke puffing
out of its nostrils.  And finnally, as the roar of the engines
came upon you and as the sound of brakes beginnging to screach to
a halt, you cound recognize what it was.  A train.  The train of
the dead.
     The train was slowing down as it rolled down the tracks and
into the center of town where it finally came to a rest.  The
people of the village quickly brought out handkerchiefs and
covered their noses from the awful smell that the train was
corroded with.  The train itself was only two cars long.  The
first car was the front of the train with the engine and three
men riding inside.  The second car was a long open car that
looked like a large dumpster.  It was in the second car that the
bodies were placed.
     A man stepped out of the front car dressed in a black
uniform and a mask that covered his face and said "How many dead
do you have?"
     The leader stepped forward and said "We have none today."
     The man from the train looked at the leader as if he didn't
believe him.  The man looked at the others and he could see the
smiles on their lips and the tears in their eyes and he knew the
leader had told the truth.  The man from the train smiled and
lowered his hand.  The leader of the village shook the other mans
hands with a tear falling from his face.  "May you always be this
lucky" said the man from the train.
     "May we always be this blessed" corrected the leader of the
village.  They all laughed.
     And their was a noise.  Just the slightest of noise but
still a sound none the less.  The group became quiet and listened
for the sound.  And again it was there, like a whimper or a cry. 
The third time the sound was made they all turned their heads to
the west and followed the sound with their eyes.  Far off in the
west, right before where the village stopped and the forest
began, they could see a thin line of smoke coming from the side
of a house.
     The leader said softly "Who lives there?"  No one said a
thing.  He turned to them and yelled "Who lives there?"  
     "A woman lives there" a young girl said "her and her baby
live there alone, I think."
     The leader looked down at the girl who had spoken with anger
boiling in his eyes.  "Why didn't you say anything?" he yelled at
the girl.  "Why didn't you tell us she wasn't here?"
     The girl choking on her own tears said "I...I didn't notice
she wasn't here."
     The leader of the village stared at her with a rage that
could have been the death of her.  But then he heard a loud moan
from the house in the west and began running down to the woman
who was crying alone.
     A crowd of only a few men were following him as he reached
the front of the house.  He tracked the line of smoke down to the
side of the house where parts of the wall were now missing.  A
bomb, he thought, a small bomb but still a bomb.  He entered the
house through the front door and saw a young woman of maybe
thirty sitting in a chair rocking back and forth clutching the
dead body of a child in her arms.  The child who was no more than
three was limp and lifeless in her clutch.  The childs head was
half gone and with every rock of the chair a line of blood got
tossed off the child onto the mother.  A part of the bomb must
have been thrown at the child as the bomb exploded, the leader
thought.  
     The woman rocked back and forth trying to sing a lullaby to
the dead child but her tears were choking her up.  Every other
word came out only as a whimper as the tears came out like blood
from a open cut.  The child slipping from her grasp as the pain
of suffering was beginning to bite down on her and make her lose
her strength.  She would bend over and gather him in her arms and
begin the rocking back and forth over again as he slipped further
and further down to the floor.
     "Hello" the leader said.  The woman blinked in recognition
of his voice but did nothing else.  "What's your name?" he said.
     "She looked up through tear filled glassy eyes and said
"Susan.  This is my daughter Dawn.  You'll have to leave though,
I'm putting her to sleep for the night."  The woman went on
softly humming the lullaby.
     "Susan, my name is Roy Burns.  Do you know me Susan?"
     She looked up at him for a moment and then looked down at
her child.  She said "Oh yes, Mr. Burns.  Your the leader of the
village.  I wanted to come see you and thank you for allowing me
and my daughter to come live in your village.  After my husband
Jack died I didn't know what we were going to do.  You know he
died in the war, he was a soldier, my Jack.  I told him stay home
and protect his family but he said no, I have to protect my
country, thats what he said.  And you know what Mr. Burns, I let
him go, yes I did.  And three months later I find out he's dead." 
She shook her head back and forth.  "And now its just me and my
Dawn.  Just me and Dawn."
     Roy stepped closer to her to get away from the men who were
standing right behind him staring over his shoulder.  "Susan, you
know I never had a child, never had a wife even.  I was wondering
if you could do me a favor."
     "Oh, what's that Mr. Burns?"
     "Could I put Dawn to sleep tonight?  I've always wanted to
rock a baby to sleep and I never had the chance.  So could I take
her, just for the night you understand, and put her to sleep."
     Susan smiled.  She looked up into Roy's eyes and said "Mr.
Burns, I know."  She looked back down into the face of the child. 
"I do know why your here" she said.  She gazed up at Roy one
final time and said "Please, let me put the child to bed
tonight."
     Roy looked into her eyes, neither one looking away from the
others gaze, and Roy knew what was going to happen.  "Ofcourse
you may" he said.
     Susan smiled and then began singing once again.  Roy turned
around and looked at the small group of men that stood behind him
and said "Everyone out."  They all began moving out of the house
and walking back towards the center of the village.  
     Tommy who was second behind Roy in leadership of the village
came up besides him as they were walking back to the rest of the
village people.  "Roy, I think she's going to..."
     Roy raised his hand and said "Tommy I know."
     "But you can't let her do it Roy.  You just can't."
     "It's what she wants Tommy, nothing I can do about that. 
Sometimes I wish I would have done the same thing when my two
sons died."  He looked up at the sky that was turning dark as the
sun fell out of sight.  
     Tommy said no more as he thought of his own child who had
died four months ago when the war had only been going on for a
short time.  That was one month after his wife had died.  And one
month before he watched Chicago go up in flames as he drove his
car out of there and deeper into the interior of America
searching for safety.  
     The men walked together staring at the ground before them
because they didn't want to have to look up at the faces that
just minutes before were so joyous with hope and now they were
going to have to take that all away from them.  The silence was
broken by a gunshot that came from behind them.  The others
looked past the men to see what where the shot had come from but
the six men knew already.  
     Roy went up to the man who came in on the train and said
"You'll find two dead in that house over there.  One is a woman
and one is a small girl."  The man from the train nodded his head
and then looked back at the train and raised two fingers.  A man
jumped down off the train carrying two empty trash bags.  
     Roy stood in the center of the group once more.  He looked
out into their faces and saw the pain that was building up inside
them.  He wished he could say something that could make them all
feel better again, something that could fill them up with hope
once more.  But there was nothing he could say, anything he said
could only hurt them more.  How could he try to give them a sense
of hope when he himself had no hope at all?  
     He said "Sleep well tonight.  And take care of yourselves
tommorow."  And then he walked off into the path of a great wind
that swirled dirt all around him until he could feel his soul
being burried alive.
     The crowd stood together feeling helpless and lost.  They
watched as the two men from the train came back with the trash
bags now filled with bodies.  The men threw the bags up and in to
the back car of the train.  The engine roared up once again and
as the crowd watched, the train carrying the dead began its
journey down the tracks to the next village.  The crowd watched
as the train once again became a dot and then a speck of
blackness in the distance.  
     They walked away, back to their houses, families holding
each other closer trying to keep the fear away, others wishing
they had someone to be with but knowing that the only thing they
had left were memories and even memories can be painful when you
know you have nothing left to look forward to but death.    
