• My brothers room always did bring up past memories. It happened long ago. Behind the eyes of innocence, a child watches the van leave the driveway. My brother knows that mom and dad are gone. Hands pressed up against the glass of the windows, I watch as my freedom is taken for the first time in my life. He just wants to play a game. It's a game that mom and dad aren't allowed to know about it.

    “What will God say?” I asked my brother. “God isn't watching. He never has, and never will,” my brother responds. There is nobody around to hear the cries that fills the room. God isn't watching. He never has, and never will. A ringing sound echoes off the walls. Brother gets up to go get the phone. As I laid there on the bed, the fresh scent of sweat and tears became unbearable. God, why does it hurt so much?

    The van pulls into the driveway. The sky is beautiful with the bright blue hues of mid-day. Mom and Dad never did find out the game my brother taught me that day. He always wanted to play when the house was empty. That way nobody could interrupt the fun, or so he would tell me. I didn't want to tell them. I love my brother. My brother just wanted to play a game. He didn't mean to hurt me.

    Mom asks me what we did while they were on errands. “We just played a game was all,” I respond. Mom smiles and ruffles the top of my head. She praises my brother for taking good care of me while they were gone. I prayed to God that night, hoping mom and dad would never leave again. God never did answer my prayer.

    As I look outside the window now, hands pressed up against the glass, I realize that God does not listen to me. I figure God doesn't want me. Memories of the past haunt my mind like a plague. Since my brother has moved out, my parents gave me his room. Haunting cries fill the room when the lights fade into darkness.

    A child screams and nobody is around to hear it. She sits on the bed and cries herself to sleep, wondering why her brother was right. She tries to tell herself that everyone will be saved. She is the voice in the back of my head that tells me to lay my head down. It will hurt for a while, but someday it will stop. The sky is still beautiful. One day there will be beauty all around, even among the atrocities of the world. As innocence is robbed, time will clear the filth away to a tranquil future.