Regina's Story

A short history on what made Regina what she is today, more for my own processes than anything else. Feel free to post if you like :>






“—reports have surfaced on Thursday's bombing of north Rochester's High Street bridge, which has been out of service since last year. The explosions may in fact NOT be the work of supposed militant groups, said to have taken up residence under the structure along with thousands of the city's homeless. Sources are unclear, but rumors of higher-up involvement ar-fzzzt—twenty years of snow falling, she's twenty years of strangers looking into each others eyes~”

Regina's fingers moved from the radio dial to a pair of thick, black framed glasses, then back to her book. "Christ," the woman muttered, turning a page as she shook her head. The mass of unruly blond locks she had pulled back with an alligator clip swung with the motion. Bombings were all the radio went on about these days. It was a worrying day-to-day reminder of the previous month that saw her out of work and scared half to death. She paused from her book, removing her glasses to rub at her tired eyes with her thin, dexterous fingers.

Back then it felt like the school was her safe haven.

Occasionally, someone would be absent: a missing face in the usually lively reading class she taught each week. Every time someone vanished the tall, docile English teacher's heart sank, as she knew it was usually for good. Something was brewing amongst the unhappy masses and equally displeased federal forces. The political atmosphere felt more like a suffocating cloud, slowly spreading out and blanketing the citizens. A dense, heavy, stinging smog that, once ignited, would surely burn them all to the ground.

The lit match came in the form of a Mark 82 General Purpose Bomb. It hit a half a kilometer too short of it's target and nearly leveled the Henrietta New Vision Elementary School, where Regina worked. It had been sheer luck that when the planes flew over it was after school hours, and most of the building's usual occupants were gone. But Regina was barely fortunate enough to be helping her daughter Lizzy with the girl's coat at the far side of her classroom when the music stopped and the widows shattered. The two sought shelter under a desk, huddling in mud, fragments of concrete and shards of glass. As the building smoldered around them, pained cries and the thick smell of smoke and broken sewage lines clogged their senses for what seemed like hours.

As day faded into night and emergency services replaced throngs of on-lookers, teams of volunteers and local police scoured the wreckage where they could find access, searching for bodies. Trapped beneath their meager shelter, the mother and daughter waited for aid, the crumpled desk hemming them in. They sat, terrified and wondering, until a familiar set of hands hefted up a slab of concrete and extended to the pair, pulling them from the wreckage. Regina and Lizzy were fortunate that Mr.Cox had known where to look. Biscuit, his furry co-worker fussed at the couple's daughter as the K9 unit cop removed his family from harm's way, and the last job with a dental plan Regina would ever hold.

Ever since that night, the events had replayed over and over within the woman's head. Now she could only fear for her beloved and watch over Lizzy while he was away, out trying to keep the peace in a city that throbbed with unrest.

To be continued.

story bit coming soon