The Adventures Of Red Writing Hood

         “ If I told you that a long time ago the entire world rested in the hands of one very unruly child, you probably wouldn’t believe me. So that is why I don’t tell stories to people that often. I can't really, because not everyone is willing to believe a cloud is talking to them. Some are just too unimaginative to believe it,”         “I believe you, sir,” Came a small voice. Sitting in the puffy white hands of the age-old cloud, a child with a pair of yellow pajamas, curly red hair, and big eyes perched happily.         “Oh, Piper. I know that it is easy for you to believe in me. You are but a girl. Someday you will forget, when you are all grown up.” He looked up to the stars that lit the night sky and twinkled playfully to the sleeping earth below them.         “I guess I won’t ever grow up then,” She smiled widely and lay her head gently on his marshmallow chest.         “How do you suppose to do that?” He chuckled, blinking at her with moonlit eyes.  

Soap bubbles Spit bubbles Sea water bubbles But the way my mind bubbles when I look at you Defies all laws of gravity My heart floats to the sky Like wings—flutter and fly The way that I sigh when I look at you These bubbles in my mind when I think of you Defying all laws of gravity Now I know what it feels like to walk on the moon My feet are so light despite their large size All I can think of is you And the skies cannot pry my eyes from your eyes And the distance can’t take me from you ‘Cause from my place in space I can still see your face And then POP I fall down again That moment is over That moment is gone One tiny minute when nothing went wrong When you looked up at me and said with a swirl “Baby, you are out of this world,” And I answered with such a delight you can see “I know, ain’t it great I defied gravity?”

Dear Mother I’m writing from this deep dark trench The rain is falling and I’m drenched Please excuse the paper, ‘cause I cannot keep it dry for long My buddies hold each other tight Whispering loved ones at home goodnight But I sit here all alone Dreaming of coming Coming home My belly aches for Johnny Cakes My head needs that warm straw bed Maybe I will see you soon I love you to the stars and moon Your Son, Ed. Dear Mother You know that I am just a boy I should be home, not in this noise You know that I am soft inside But this war that I so great despise Has toughened me a lot Oh, what has become of me? What has this Great War done to me? I hope I can escape such dread Maybe I will see you soon I love you to the stars and moon Your Son, Ed Dear Mother This is at last my last goodbye I was off to war, now I’m off to night Wounded in an army camp Nothing in life to hold on to “Not gonna make it,” The doctor sai

     The music pattered like raindrops in my drizzly mind. My head swayed with the motion of my fingers tapping the black and white keys. A combination that I made up as I went, the music was slow and sad.    A tear fell and slid in a crack on one of the keys. I remembered how it got there on mothers piano, this piano. My eyes flicked to the bloodstains on the once white windowsill. Papa.     Then I remembered the screams and the horrific crack as my little brother was thrown against the sofa. Four. Josef had been just four years old--a mere baby.    I closed my eyes, forbidding more tears to escape. Then they fell like the souled rain that dropped through the smoke of the crematoriums.    My mind went back to those days cooped up in the rotting pigstye. I saw people dropping like harmless flies wherever I looked. There was no use to make friends, for I was certain that they too would perish, I remember the smell of burning people, the screams of tortured women, the shouts of star