"Groundless
prejudices and weaknesses of conscience, instead of tenderness, mislead too
many others, too many, otherwise good men."
Thomas Sprat.
New Zagreb, Planet
Arda III, Arda System
It was an early, warm and still morning—beautiful in every
respect with shimmering leaves reflecting the sunlight of a cloudless sky. Soren rolled in his bed and opened bleary
eyes towards the sounds of birds chirping beyond the slats in the small garden beyond
his bedroom window. Stretching an arm he reached for his wristwatch and checked
the time: 7:45 AM. With an exasperated sigh he flipped his legs off the side of
the bed and reached for his undershirt on the floor beside the nightstand. In
the automatic fashion of routine he worked his arms through its sleeves,
slipped his feet into a tired looking pair of sandals then stood to open the
wooden shutters in his bedroom to the garden beyond. Whereas the sun struggled through to the room before, Soren welcomed the rich kiss of its
warmth and the accompanied birdsong as the busy sounds of New Zagreb filled the
room behind him. The hint of a breeze tickled his face and he stretched his
arms out wide in a stretch as the last eddies of sleep slipped free from his
mind.
Slack-jawed he turned and looked at the disarray of his
bedroom, the result of weeks solely spent in the grind of 16 hour shifts, 7
days a week treating those in the armed services flooding into Grmek Memorial
Hospital.
“And weeks longer at this rate,” he mused out loud to
himself.
