The smell of sulphur from spent gunpowder came rolling out of the mayhem. Her number 6 called out a round, “Double canister 80 yards, Zero degrees!” Quan stood erect looking straight into the abyss at her fallen commander. Her right leg reaches back digging a heel into the earth.
Her left leg lunges forward and squares itself at the knee. Quan extends her left arm as her gunner sights the target. She looks down the dimple of her shoulder through the barrel of her elbow, and out the muzzle of her fingers. Her right arm reaches behind her extending the rear
of the barrel. She straightens her new line and holds this pose for 3 deep breaths. Each time her fingertips pushing each length of the barrel further. Quan’s hips sink a little deeper as her body hardens into a bronze war cannon. Her gunner yells, “Ready!” She inhales again
and feels the prick of the friction primer poking through the skin of her shoulders. She takes another deep breath in the fresh rage of her captain. She is on tiptoes for her gunner to call the order. On fire, number 4 yanks the lanyard. A sparkling vein of gunpowder burrows its
way to her belly. It feels like shattered glass on fire. Quan hears a tiny drop of quiet right before the menace erupted. The canister vomited in a geyser cone of death metal. Trees and men all fell together from the explosive hail of grapeshot. Quan’s tongue was coated in a
chalky flour of black spent soot. The giant bell was rung and the throbbing in her ears stirred a vapor of creamy smoke in her sinuses. Her head was cast iron. There was nothing left in front of them except blood and fire. Atlas was conceived in the dead eyes of her fallen capt.
