Two Left Feet

She still couldn't shake the previous night's dream. Had any of it been real? The clumps of hair on the floor were real. So were the shattered pieces of glass spread across the front lawn-the only remnants of an attic window. Donna looked in the mirror to see what she already knew would be lurking there. And she was right-a scared little girl stared back at her with silent tears rolling down the curves of her face.

In the hanging mist of the previous night, Donna recalled standing in front of this same mirror hanging on the back of the door. Memorizing every imperfection on her face, her left hand floated up to her face and stroked a strand of long, black hair away from her eyes. The only illumination in the room came from moonbeams streaming in the window.

Somehow her right hand found a pair of scissors. She started cutting her raven locks. Her cuts were slow and even at first, but in a moment her right hand could not seem to cut the locks off fast enough. At this point, Donna resembled Daniel more than she had on the day they were born.

Her binding clothes came next. The black dress she wore to Daniel's funeral seemed to suffocate her now. The scissors stab deep into the cloth. The blades feel cold on her skin, but they never penetrate the sensitive flesh. Sleeves and ruffles fall to the floor. She needed to prepare for battle.

Donna shuffled to the other end of the room, picking up a ceramic box. Nothing fancy, just a place to stash away childhood trinkets. Now, a man's memento laid in it-the military medal that once again reminded her that her twin brother was dead.

Hands that are no longer her own pin the medal to a strip of cloth that still covers her chest. The box slipped out of those same hands, startled only when the box shatters on the floor.

Gun fire. Shells. They were all around her. Donna gripped a rifle, waiting for the right moment to shoot. Her only protection was the Humvee that she crouched beside. Another shell. Another flinch that sent her finger closer to the trigger.

She looked up and was back in the bedroom. Thunder passed the window with a low rumble. Daniel's picture sat on the window sill. His proud stature contradicted the fear in his eyes. The picture was in her loving hands. A great boom of thunder sent the frame flying from her hands to the floor, cracking the glass across Daniel's lean shoulders. Donna closed her eyes, feeling his pain. It was a searing pain in the gut that she would never forget.

Her mind skipped back to the desert-back to the place where Daniel took his last breath. The gun she had in her hands only moments before now lay on the ground beside her. Her eyes hurt. Her whole head hurt. When her hands came down from her face, she saw the blood. Screams echoed throughout the desert. It echoed all the way back to Daniel's childhood bedroom.

Donna could see Daniel coming toward her. The gunfire whizzed past his head. Shells exploded on the ground behind him, sending up mounds of sand into the air. Oblivious to the danger, Daniel came up to Donna and told her the one thing she needed to hear: "You still have two left feet?" The childish smile made her feel better, but the blood from her head dripped down her body, the desert fatigues she wore soaking it all up. He kept asking her the question like a broken record: "You still have two left feet? You still have two left feet?"

Back in his bedroom, Donna stood at the window. It was open and beads of rain swelled into puddles on the window sill. She sat down, knees to her chest. On the ground outside, Daniel walks across the lawn, then disappears with a flash of lightning. Her hand went through the window trying to reach out for him.

By morning, the bloody hand had scabbed over. Daniel's room was a mess, but it couldn't have all been a dream. The memory in Donna's gut didn't lie.