Three Tears and One Kiss: Dark Romance Stories By Nick Armbrister

“I grew up in a town up the road and have lived in the Manchester area all of my life. I’ve been in Ashton a couple of years. I’m eighteen and a half. I joined the army on my birthday. I wonder if I made the right choice but I couldn’t work inside a war factory twelve hours at a go, no way. I like the outdoors and walking in the countryside. In the army, we’re outside a lot when we do training and manoeuvres. That’s okay but I don’t want to go to war or kill anyone. It’s too late now though, I’ll have to do this. I hope it’s over soon,” he said, loudly over the bomb explosions and barking guns. The siren had stopped its eerie wail. Enemy aircraft were now overhead.

“It’s good you like the outdoors. I like it too, from my time on the farm. I never wanted to be a farmer, my dad expected me to though, being a farmer’s daughter. I’d rather be a nurse than a farmer. I don’t like the war either. I’m not sure if I’d like to work in a factory or mill. They seem dark forbidding places and the Nazi’s bomb them,” Lisa replied. “And it’s good you don’t want to kill anyone.”

“I think you’d make a good farmer, even if you’re a girl. That’s better than being in the war as a nurse, seeing badly hurt soldiers. You should have stuck to being a farmer, its safer Lisa.”