World War III

January 17, 2043


Camp Yavoriv, Somewhere in Europe

My Dearest Dianne,

I have written this letter a dozen times and burned it a dozen more. I do not know what words are safe anymore, nor if this letter will ever find its way to you. The war has stretched its arms across the world, and with it, the darkness has returned to our homeland, a darkness we thought had been buried in the past; all because they believed hatred would make our country great again.

When I kissed you goodbye in New York, I still believed we were fighting for something worth saving. I still believed that after all these years, we had built a country that would not turn against its own. But now, from the trenches of another European battlefield, I see things more clearly. This war is not just one of borders or alliances. It is one of memory and forgetting; I won’t be the same if I make it home.

They want to erase us, Dia. Not just you and me, but what we stand for. The love we were free to declare just a decade ago is now whispered about in the shadows. You were my wife, my equal, my heart. But now they call you a mistake I should be ashamed of, a stain upon my name because our skin color are on opposite ends of their prejudice spectrum. And the worst of it is that I can do nothing. Nothing but fight a war in their name while they tear apart the life we built, the life I had planned to spend every waking moment sleeping in your arms.

Do you remember the night we danced barefoot in the kitchen, long before the first bombs fell? You laughed at me because I had no rhythm and to be fair I told you as men we only have 4 main dance moves; and I swear I had never felt more in step with life. I think about your infectious laugh, the first time you took me ice skating and the countless times I fell. I laugh now but in the moment I was embarrassed and impressed how you skated circles around me; and still held out your hand to hold me up. I am literally twice your weight and it did not stop you from supporting me out there and not to fall. I hold onto these memories, Dia. I hold onto it, they cannot take it from me; I only fear it will take my life & I won’t go into the night like I dreamt of the moment I laid eyes on you.

They sent a new sergeant today, one from back home. He looked at the picture I keep of you—the one of us from our first date in the Photo Booth , my hands wrapped around your waist—and sneered. He called it "unnatural", “disgusting” like the man at the pizza shop when he saw us after he was re-elected. He said that when I return home, if I return, I should know better than to go looking for you. As if love is something that can be undone by law or decree.

And yet, that is not even the worst of it. Last week, they sent us to fight another unnecessary battle to annex Canada. The Canadians are as kind as they are fierce and I would much rather hide in their ice with you. It’s another war within a war, one that no soldier here can justify. They told us it was about securing resources, but we all know it was about pride, about proving dominance where none was needed. We stormed into towns that had no means to resist, tore through streets that once held peace. I watched men die for nothing, Dia. I killed for nothing. And when I looked around, I saw no victory—only the hollow eyes of those who realized too late that we had become something monstrous.

I do not know what I will return to. I do not know if you are safe. Tell me you are safe. Tell me they have not taken our home. Tell me that I still have something to fight for, that I still have something to live for.

I will write again, if I can. If they let me. If the world still lets us love.

Forever yours,


Anthony

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February 3, 2043


Brooklyn, New York

My Sweet Anthony, my Apollo, my sunlight

I prayed this letter would find you before it was too late. I do not know if they are reading our words, if my truth will ever reach you, or if it will be swallowed whole by the war that devours everything in its path. But I must write. I must try.

I received your letter two days ago, and I have not stopped crying since. Not because I am afraid—though I am—but because I cannot bear the thought of you suffering in that cold, faraway place with only the memory of me to keep you warm.

Anthony, you should know they came for me. Not with shackles or guns, but with silence and ruin. The bank rescinded our loan. The neighbors who once smiled now look away. They came to my job and told me my presence was "a disruption to order." It was not spoken aloud, but I heard the message just the same: I am not welcome here. We are not welcome here.

I cannot buy food without whispered warnings. I cannot step outside without wondering if today is the day they come to make good on their threats. The laws have changed endlessly, but the hatred is the same if not stronger. I see it in the eyes of the old men who long for the past and the young ones who have never known anything else. I fear my love that when you return, there will be nothing left for you to return to; that I failed to maintain what was left of the life we built together.

But I will not run, not yet. I stay because of hope, though I admit it is fading. I stay because I promised you I would be here when you came home. And yet, I do not know how much longer I can hold onto the house we built, the life we built. I crave to travel North in hopes that in just a few hours I can be with the safe side of history.

The weight of caring for my family is suffocating. My mother’s mind is unraveling. Her schizophrenia gnaws at her without mercy, and without her medications, she is losing her grip on reality. She talks to the walls, sings to ghosts, blames the demons, and stares at me as if I am a stranger in my own skin while wielding a knife to protect herself against the demons she sees. It is getting worse, and I do not know how to save her. I do not know how to save myself. The weight of it all is crushing me, and I feel as if I am drowning in a sea of duties I cannot fulfill.

Work is beyond unbearable. The hospital is overrun, the wounded pile in faster than we can treat them. The shifts stretch endlessly, and my hands are never clean of blood. The weight of each loss settles on my shoulders, and I wonder how much more I can carry. The war has made me feel like a machine, processing pain and death without time to grieve. But I keep going and going and going, because I must. Because I have to believe there is something worth saving.

I want you to know that I am searching, my love. Searching for a way to come to you. There must be a way, some transfer where they need nurses by you and I travel with you, some placement that will allow me to be near you, even if only in the same country. If I cannot be with you at home, then let me be with you in war. If the world will not let us live together in peace, then I will fight just to stand beside you. I will petition, beg, and barter until I find a way. No distance, no decree, no war will keep me from you forever; you are my only peace. Perhaps when the cell phone towers are repaired we can FaceTime again; oh how I miss your face.

Do you remember the first time you told me you loved me? It was under that old oak tree, the one by the river where we carved our initials into the bark. You held my hands and said the world could never change how you felt. I believed you then, and I believe you now. But the world is trying, Anthony. It is trying so hard; please have faith because if you don’t. I do not know if I can.

If you can, write to me again. Tell me you are still fighting, still breathing, still carrying me with you across that battlefield. You can not fall. Promise me you will remember that love, that our love is worth every battle waged. I will get to you. I will find you.

Yours, in defiance and devotion,


Dianne,