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Retro Tuesday 10-13-2026

He watched the sunrise, beginning a new day.

Behind him the sounds of the camp waking filled the air. They were tearing down today, moving about a mile up-river, closer to the other camp. It was early to move, but commands were commands and the higher up didn’t know shit about the dirt and…. shit when boots were on the ground. Knee-deep in mud. Toes rotting.

No mystery breakfast this morning. No more supplies. Promise was supplies at the next camp, but promises were mostly broken. Always broken, more like.

Supposed to be reinforcements, too, at the next camp, but…. promises and shit.

His vote was to retreat, but retreat didn’t sit well in the air-conditioned offices with higher-ups sipping tea and eating dainties. Least they were leaving the dead and wounded behind, even if that meant half his troops. They wouldn’t hear the cries anymore, the despair and pain and heartache of the dying.

Besides, they didn’t have room for them, not with so many more to die. They needed the mattresses for tomorrow.

“Ready, sir.” From behind.

He nodded. “Go.”

For a moment more he watched the sunrise, beginning a new day.

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Quote For The Day 10-13-2026

“Whenever you leave cleared land, when you step from some place carved out, plowed, or traced by a human and pass into the woods, you must leave something of yourself behind. It is that sudden loss, I think, even more than the difficulty of walking through undergrowth, that keeps people firmly fixed to paths. In the woods, there is no right way to go, of course, no trail to follow but the law of growth. You must leave behind the notion that things are right. Just look around you. Here is the way things are. Twisted, fallen, split at the root. What grows best does so at the expense of what’s beneath.”

― Louise Erdrich, The Red Convertible: Selected and New Stories, 1978-2008