The contrast of the plain below was stark. Beyond the edge of the forest, across the boundary to the other country, there lay only barren, empty land. Parched and dry it would provide for no man.
The drums of war beat on. He can hear them getting louder behind him. The choice is clear, the answer uncertain.
Stay and fight for his place in the land of his birth, where, if circumstances fall in his favour he may rise to become something more, or flee to the land of his ancestors, where the struggle would be not for greatness but to simply survive.
The drums of war beat louder. Not a war of bullets and bombs, a war of rhetoric and spite. A war for the very heart and soul of humanity and the country. Will anyone rise up and save her, that country that promised so much?
Thomas Jefferson looked back at the America he had helped create. That spirit he remembered, now gone. That land of opportunity. An opportunity to mean something more to the people of the world. A symbol of hope.
He had not been born in the United States Of America, he had helped give birth to it from the ashes of the British Colonies.
Now it was to another land he must flee. A place beyond this devastation of lost hope.
He had endured hardship and struggle before, he would do so again. With that, Jefferson made his choice and abandoned the country that no longer welcomed her own children.
‘Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!’
This is a response to the #writephoto Prompt – Stark curated over at Sue Vincent’s Daily Echo. Click on the link to read other stories inspired by the image.
As a footnote I include the poem inscribed on the Statue of Liberty, ‘The New Colossus’ by Emma Lazarus.
My new novel ‘A Justified State’ is released this Saturday and is available now to order in Paperback and Kindle versions from Amazon, just follow the appropriate link below to find out more:
US / Amazon.com UK / Amazon.co.uk Canada / Amazon.ca
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Netherlands / Amazon.nl Japan / Amazon.co.jp Brazil / Amazon.com.br
Iain Kelly 
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