Category: Uncategorized

URBAN SKY

~ B.G. Smith

by B.G. Smith

Muzzle flashes lit up the twilight street. Kelvin never heard the shots.

The gunman wearing a red bandana disappeared into an alley like smoke into darkness.

A young boy in a blood-soaked “Be Humble” t-shirt stared at the urban sky with glassy eyes, his legs folded beneath him like a broken puppet. His new bicycle lay twisted beside him, clicking like a dying heartbeat.

Familiar screams echoed off the surrounding bungalows. Kelvin floated toward the sound. His mother’s anguished wails pierced the night as she cradled his body, and Kelvin whispered words she would never hear: “Please forgive me, Mama.”

JESSICA’S BIRTHDAY

~ B.G. Smith

by B.G. Smith

Jessica was born 21 years ago and is legally old enough to buy an adult beverage today. She graduated from high school, earned a scholarship, and is in her junior year of college. She’s already experienced her first kiss, her first love, and her first heartbreak. Raised by a loving mother and a man who treated her as his own, Jessica is thankful for the blessings in life. Still, her birthday celebration won’t be one of a typical 21-year-old; but a solemn remembrance of the father she never met, a firefighter who perished on the darkest day in American history.

FDNY Foundation

NYC Police Foundation

Tunnels to Towers

The Never Forget Fund

Tuesday’s Children

THE INFERNO

~ B.G. Smith

by B.G. Smith

The fire consumes wood like a hungry bear awakened from hibernation. The intensity of the heat causes me to recoil from its scorching anger. A crackle and pop break the evening silence; the ravenous inferno finds sustenance in its path. Room to room, floor to floor—nothing—and no one—is safe from its destruction. My wife, kneeling in the front yard of the home where we reared our children, watches history reduced to a pile of rubble and ash. I wipe tears from her cheeks and wrap her in my embrace, trying to remember when the kids visited last.