Sudetenland Tales by Edward Drobinski - HTML preview
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Sudetenland Tales
Page 544
Joan had medals at home, buried in a kitchen drawer beneath expired coupons and AA batteries. She didn't show them off. In the Dollar Store's shadow, her valor wasn't decorated; it was lived, one shift at a time, protecting something far less glorious than a battlefield.
Hope didn't wear fatigues here. It wore a blue windbreaker and steel toed boots.
The neighborhood was more than just Joan's workplace. It was her proving ground, her reminder, and her reflection. It shaped her experience in subtle, complex ways.
It was a landscape of tension which required constant alertness. West Langley Heights was unpredictable. The ambient threat; sirens, vandalism, desperation, kept Joan in a state of readiness that echoed her time in combat, but without the clarity of mission, other than to protect herself.
Moral complexity - Unlike war zones with defined enemies, here she faced troubled individuals; some young, some bums, some retards, some addicted, most just trying to feel good. It forced Joan to navigate moral ambiguity daily, deciding when and how to intervene, while remembering that her instructions called for her to stop theft. After all, if theft were allowed to run