La Mort de Mon Amour, Submission 4 by Lee Martin

Twenty-one of October, the year 1805,
To God, prayer from men that they still were alive.
I praise you, I love you, I weep for this man,
But for France, I remember I must do what I can.

Victory, Roy’ Sovereign, Euryaius, Defence
Vs. Redoutable, Héros, Pluton, and Hortense.

Yours twenty-seven, white canvas and sea,
Outweighted, by the numbers, from our thirty-three.
Prediction, they say, your success quick will be,
Triumphant for London, but violent for we.

“A Hero,” “A Saint,” “An Inspiring Name,”
Sans arm, minus eye, and a ballet-like frame.

Hand over hand up the ratlines crawl I
“Observe,” ordered he, “watch, listen and spy.”
Ensuing conflict brought mayhem to the day,
Cannon, commands, all a handsome display.

You halve our ship’s compliment and cut down our chances.
Endure: for your men, but cause-ending for France’s.

I have but one shot, so I carefully aim
For your heart from my heart, for a life bless’d by fame.
Conscience speaks through the sound and debris,
“Be remembered though history--kill Nelson,” says he.

Valediction, My Lord, God bless d'etat,
Your end sure will be my great oeuvre.

Some Rescue, Submission 4 by Brian Zook

Claude could see the black Mercedes approach on the other side of the tunnel, followed by several motorcycles. Just as he was thinking to himself that the speed of the Mercedes was excessive, he could see the car lose control, skid, hit the far wall of the tunnel, then roll over across the road toward the middle of the tunnel and crash into one of the columns separating the opposing lanes, just feet away from where he was driving. He momentarily slammed on the breaks but remembered that he was in a tunnel and the safe thing to do was to keep driving. He felt a tingle and a warm rush of blood to his head.

“Whoa,” he thought. “If that column wasn’t there I could have been dead meat.”

By then he was past the car and he strained his neck to see the reflection of the Mercedes in his rearview mirror.

As a doctor, he knew he had the obligation to turn around at the other end of the tunnel and make his way back to the scene of the accident. It was late, it had been a long day, and he wanted nothing more than to get home and go to bed. He thought about the expression “crash” to describe the action of going to bed and wondered where that originated. He called for an ambulance on his car phone as he turned around and headed back into the tunnel

By the time he got to the scene of the crash, several cars and motorcycles were stopped and some photographers were taking pictures of the scene. He announced himself as a doctor, told the photographers to back off, and looked inside the vehicle.

“Who are these people?” he thought. “These guys must be pretty desperate to get pictures of the occupants of the car.”

He could tell there were four people in the car, and it was clear that none of them were wearing seatbelts. The driver, slumped over the steering wheel, had sustained serious head injuries and was most likely dead. He could hear groans coming from the woman in the back and the guy in the passenger seat. The head of the man next to the woman in the back seat was bent back at an awkward angle.

In spite of the blood covering her face from a gash in her forehead, he recognized the woman and understood the presence of the paparazzi.

“Oh, no,” he thought. “Do I deal with her first because of who she is or deal with the most critically injured? Triage is such an unexact science. Why wasn’t she wearing a seatbelt? Do these photographers have any respect? Where’s that ambulance?”

He decided to assist the woman first because her door was the only one that was not jammed. Still, her position partially under the driver’s seat made it difficult to reach her. He talked to her in English, but she only groaned in response. He solicited the help of one of the photographers to pull her out of the car with great care, and laid her on the road. A bystander offered his coat as a blanket. It was obvious that she was in great pain, and she was having difficulty breathing, probably due to broken ribs. Her head injuries were addressed with gauze, which he happened to have with him in his case in the car, and it stopped the bleeding, at least for now.

Finally the ambulance arrived and he told the EMTs who he was and barked orders to check the other passengers in the vehicle. The woman had lost a lot of blood, and one of the EMTs quickly put an IV in her. Finally she was put on a stretcher, loaded into the ambulance, and taken to the hospital.

Claude then turned his attention to the other passengers. The man in the passenger seat was pulled out gingerly through the window, and he, too, was put into a second ambulance and taken to a hospital. There was nothing that could be done for the other two.

By then the police had arrived and took statements from Claude, the photographers, and the other bystanders.

Claude was exhausted. It was close to 3:00 am by this time and he needed to go home. He collapsed on his bed once he got home but could not immediately fall asleep because his head was spinning with all the events of the night. He did eventually fall asleep and slept soundly until the phone rang around 9:00 am. Claude thought about not answering it, but picked up the phone before the call went to the answering machine. It was a reporter asking him how it felt to be the rescuer of Princess Diana.

Confession, Submission 1 by Michelle Mathews

"You are a boil on the butt of humanity and a cancer cell to this family!” Those were the last words she would ever say to him. For 22 years they had shared most everything, a bathroom, a house, parents, one older brother, several dogs, and for a brief period in time a high school. In 22 years they moved together with their family 4 times, buried 2 grandparents, and got in more fist fights than she cared to think about. He was her big brother, one of few links to her past and the only sibling close enough in age to fully understand the angst of what seemed like a never ending power struggle for parental affection. This is her confession. She didn't feel guilty after she uttered that last statement to him and to date she still doesn't. She knows that despite the tantrums, the anger, and the fights there was always something underneath it all. She knew that if she really needed him although he may take his sweet time, he would be there. He knew that if there was some obstacle he could not take on himself he could find some way of "ordering" her to help him. The only fight she got into in the 6th grade was because of him. Someone was picking on him and God knew that she could wail on him all she wanted but if anyone dared hurt him she would be out for blood. They didn't mess with him again after that. Although there was 22 months in-between them (he the older) she had always been the more mature. This is not a "girls mature faster than boys" thing either. He was ADD and ADHD with a touch of autism. He could function alone or with very few people in the room but if you threw anymore than that he would go nuts.

It was a cold day, she remembered that fairly well. Her boyfriend and her had been shopping for Christmas stockings and had been having a great time. When they got back to the car she saw that she had missed a phone call from her dad. "Hi dad, guess what I just got."
"Princess, something's happened." Immediately, something's wrong. He hadn't called her princess since she was about five years old.
"What's wrong dad?"
"John's gone." There was no need to ask where, she could tell by his tone.
"Daddy, no." she whimpered. After that the conversation goes blurry - something about his heart just stopped and there was nothing anyone could do.
The immediate pain she feels isn't hers; it belongs to the voice of the man on the other end of the phone. A man whom she had never seen flinch so much as cry whose voice had a deep somber pain behind it. It belonged to her mother a woman who had already buried one son and would now have to bury another. Her pain wasn't until later.

The nightmares started nightly. The brief hours during an insominiatic sleep had been over run with dreams of him dying over and over again. Within a month she was dreaming him alive only to relive the pain of reality every time she awoke.

It has been months now. She still drives every few days for hours at a time at night. She fights so hard not to lose the sound of his voice and his huge smile. She fights hard to keep a list of reasons for not killing herself fresh in her mind. After all, her mother shouldn't have to bury 3 children. She also can't bear to think of hurting her boyfriend like that. He less than her mother, still the only thing that keeps her from harming herself is the knowledge of the pain she would be causing others. The knowledge of the pain that her brother's death has caused her. She knows that one day she will be able to feel the sun and not tear up knowing that he can not. Until then she clings tight to the memory of the last thing she said to him. It sounds odd but she knows that the harsh criticism of him was who they were as siblings. Him introverted and afraid, her extroverted and fiercely independent. They were two sides of the same coin. They knew that the anger that flared up between them stemmed from a hidden jealousy of the other. He was jealous of her ability to start conversations with anyone, she jealous of his unconditional (if misguided) affection for those he cared for.

This has been my confession.
I miss him.