You try to remember what Shana and Zed just told you but the words are all separate, there's no grammar or
syntax
to
hold them together in your mind. Instead you see the dark blue flecks again, now with yellow flecks too,
floating
thickly in your pooled blood. The soldiers in black who came up from the tunnels had warned the children to stay
away
from the supply hut, but your mother had asked you to gather food whenever there was extra available, and what
your
mother said was what you did, especially since your father was killed. You couldn't read the American label, but
the
picture on the can had shown something like a ham that was shaped and sliced like a loaf of American bread. It
was
a
little strange but it was still meat and you knew your mother and sisters could really use some of that to cut
up
into
the rice. So you went for it.
at 
on 
