#01. the children

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❘❙❚ ISSUE #01 ░░░░ VOL

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❘❙❚ ISSUE #01 ░░░░ VOL. 1
❛ THE CHILDREN ❜ ┆🌹

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For as long as Rosie could remember, she wondered what she was doing on a military base in the middle of nowhere, among lush trees and a sky that was rarely clear and rarely saw the sun's rays hit the bridge of her nose, so she liked to draw with the crayons in the room labeled "coexistence - restricted". On the paper she could capture a nicer world than the one she lived in and one where she didn't have to stand next to Ben trying to scratch her drawings because he was bored playing with some cars at the other end of the room. It was the fifth time that day that Rosie erased the charcoal scratch across a landscape of flowers, bright sunshine and mountains. The girl's serenity in response to the boy's aggressions had a group of doctors writing excitedly in their notebooks, Rosie sometimes watch them out of the corner of her eye, up there hiding behind a large window.

"Let's play, Rosie," Ben chortled, tugging at her arm with a force unbecoming of a ten year old. Rosie didn't resist and didn't try to shake him off either, she didn't do it anymore, he always won because he had much more strength. "They gave us a chess set, let's play."

Ben dragged her towards the wooden tables. A girl had left a square pattern board and a few pieces arranged in rows. Ben made her sit across from him and as she climbed up to get into the chair, Rosie shrank into her own shell. The two were very different -not just because of the obvious difference in sex-, Ben was a year older having been born in the year 1919. He was a boy with straight, light brown hair, he had almond-shaped eyes of the most vivid green, like the most exotic plant. A sprinkling of freckles adorned the area of his nose and some escaped to his neck. He was shorter than she was, but, even so, when he put his hand on her arm, it would leave a mark on her for hours. Rosie was quiet and shy, making a curtain of her long red hair to avoid being seen and to avoid looking at them.

"Do you know how to play?"

She shook her head so subtly that it made Ben think about the answer.

"It's a war game. I've seen the military play it outside, when they take us out in the yard. You've never seen them? Bah! What are you going to see them! You just sit on the swing looking at the ground, you don't even swing. Do you know they laugh at you? The soldiers? They say a girl shouldn't be here, it's ridiculous. You should act more like me, like a normal kid, then maybe they won't laugh at you. Anyway, look, I'm going to be the white ones because I'm going to start first, you'll be the black ones, that will be your army. We are at war.

The girl looked at the clock on the big wall. The needles were moving so slow, very slow that her breath was coming in short gasps. It was still two hours before the red needle would land on the number seven and they would be taken to their rooms. She liked being alone in her room, no one bothered her and there were no men in white coats staring at her. Her dull green eyes, brushed with the color of dawn, danced from clock to door and from door to clock.

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