The Writing Impact Challenge: Short Story "A Kiss" by Stephanie Spicer

There once was a mother whose son was away fighting in the war. She used to think
about him and miss him and worry about him all the time. One day she put her fingers to her lips
and blew him a kiss.

The kiss danced away on the wind like a red rose petal. It blew all the way across the
ocean, here swirled by blustery gales and there floated on peaceful levants. It flew right into the
camp where the soldier lay sleeping on a cot, because it was nighttime in that country.

The soldier lay facedown, exhausted. One arm was bound with a bandage and the other
hung down to the floor and rested on his gun. He was dirty; he hadn’t had his clothes off for
days, and through the grime on his face there ran a few clean lines, because he had lost a
comrade today.

The kiss blew in at the flap of the tent and came and rested on his cheek. He did not wake
up, he was so tired and so trapped in haunting dreams. But for one moment, there flickered
across the pained lines of his face something that looked like the shadow of a smile.