Eggs - Linda Kunnath

They were lined up like eggs in a carton. Two identical rows of six Japanese boys dressed in their matching school uniforms of shorts with suspenders, white shirts knee socks and tennis shoes. Some of their knees were marbled red and blue, it was so cold, with the winter snow, falling in mild drifts and clouding the lens of the camera. The little boy, Kiko, stared at the camera, his black eyes filled with the anticipation of getting the class photo done with, and running inside to the warmth of the school house and origami and collage and drawing and dancing, he’d been promised by Nieko, his teacher. But as soon as he heard the click of the camera and turned to run inside he heard something else – a low droning of something in the sky, coming from somewhere far away, but growing closer and louder until the sound was so loud that he could barely hear his teacher yelling and then screaming, ‘Children, children..,,,run…run…run inside. The boys scrambled at once, like a herd running in unison, their bodies so close to each other that he could barely breathe. Smaller than the other children he caught his foot on a branch sticking out of the icy ground and slid, scrapping his thigh against the branch – blood oozing everywhere like gooey white and yolks from just cracked eggs.