Here it is. The second story in my challenge, Land Of Broken Dreams. I hope you will take the opportunity to read it while I have it here totally free. Each week I will have a different story available on my website until the next one is ready to put up. Thereafter, the previous story will only be here as an except. You can read the entire stories on Kindle, Nook, iPad, or most e-readers.
LAND OF BROKEN DREAMS
Shaun Kilgore
Copyright © 2012 by Shaun Kilgore
Published by Founders House Publishing
April 20th, 2017, 5:12 a.m.
Urbana, Illinois.
I couldn’t sleep. After three hours of tossing and turning, I sat up in bed, reached for the remote control in the dark, and let the glow of the television fill the room. I flipped through the channels for a while until I came to CNN. It was more of the same looped footage that showed throughout the day on the twenty-four hour news network. More of the same: President Richards making assurances that the last of the U.S. troops would be leaving Islamabad by September, a resurgence of riots across random sectors of Jerusalem and a deadly series of coordinated car bomb attacks across the Gaza Strip, and German scientists unveiling new genetic research that may have found a cure for HIV.
Just as I was about to turn the box off, a special news report filled the screen. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. For past few years, tensions surrounding the border and immigration disputes with Mexico had been escalating more and more. Demonstrations were becoming regular across the western states, with southern California being the media center for the outpouring of radical Hispanic sentiments. Now, sitting in my bed, I watched Del Rio, Texas burning. A radical group calling themselves the MexAmerican Army had claimed responsibility for the devastation but no arrests had been made. Further bulletins started pouring in, breaking through even the newscaster’s practiced composure. Within a matter of minutes, the horrible scene was repeated in El Paso, Laredo, and Brownsville, though on different scales of destruction.
I got dressed but remained transfixed by the almost frantic news reports that were coming in. Explosions rocked El Paso—the source of the blasts still uncertain.
By 8:00 a.m., the broadcasts were merely replays of earlier recorded events. Camera crews from all of the major networks were vying for the space to cover the destruction of over half of Laredo, Texas. Thousands were reported dead in the fire and explosions.
I had to get away from the box now. My growling stomach gave me a reason. In the kitchen, I filled a bowl with Cheerios and ate in numb silence. I was nervous and apprehensive. It was same way I felt during 9/11. America had been attacked. But who was the MexAmerican Army?
