Orphan Openings: Trauma Team Edition

Though hardened by fifteen years service on the Fruit & Vegetable Clean-up Team, Kurt felt a tightening in his gut as cleanup vehicles flashing lights played across the carnage: some three dozen watermelons fallen off a pickup truck onto I-35. Broken rinds littered the road, the lights of the emergency vehicles making them first more livid red, then purplish blue. Pulp and seeds were thrown every which way, with tire treads running through the carnage and spattering it up on the guard rails.

"You expect to see this kind of thing in a war," Kurt told the reporter from News Nine, trying to assume the tough but sensitive man who's seen too much demeanor that would lead her to call him later. "But this is no war. This is right here at home. Seeds and pulp thrown all over like an artillery barrage hit an infantry battalion."

One of the other men dropped an armful of broken rinds into the cleanup bin, touched the crucifix hanging around his neck, and murmured a prayer.

Kurt shook his head. "How can you believe in God when you see things like this?"