Pretty Lights

All is fair in love, war, and depression.

Eventually, the gun became a sort of inside joke. We didn’t understand what about it was so funny, but those two would look at it, then each other, and begin laughing so hard that tears came to their eyes. They would use it as a solution for everything. Jar of food need to be opened? Dushka. Someone pissing you off? Dushka. Feeling sad? Dushka. Need to signal the commander? Dushka. No problem existed that couldn’t be solved with automatic fire. Well, almost no problem. One of them was chronically sad, the other perpetually lost. But at night, Dushka’s tracers illuminated all the shadows of doubt for reasons why things were the way they were. All of that destruction brought some kind of salvation and, in her words... pretty lights.