My Newsfeed Scrolls

by Patricia Roe


My newsfeed scrolls as I sip my morning coffee.
Something catches my eye.
There’s a photo of children running through the streets of their village.
The horrors of the day showing in their faces.
Children who should be running on the playground at their school.
Will they survive the attack?
At what cost?
I move on to find another photo of a young girl running from a long ago conflict.
She appears totally naked, it accentuates her innocence.
The siege that forced her to flee from her homeland so very long ago.
She survived.
Now she is sharing her story of resilience.
Decades separate the two events and yet they are so similar.
Expressions of the same shared fear.
Their childhood gone in an instant.
I imagine adults in a darkened room somewhere making plans.
They are never the ones who face the horrors.
Why must our children always pay the highest price?
My coffee has gone cold.


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Patricia Roe retired a few years back from a career of helping others during which she engendered a collection of tales that she hopes to share with the world. After spending decades honing her writing skills in the business world with company newsletters and project reports, Pat is now excited to have an opportunity to explore her creative side. Currently working on multiple projects from poetry to blogging to her first novel, she feels that her life experiences give her the perfect background to tell many different stories in an assortment of genres. Hopefully, you will agree!