"I'm going to volunteer," Sara said, sitting at the dinner table among freshly cooked meat. "Those kids, I can't watch them suffer like this. At least I can be of some help."
Harrison listened, but his attention seemed elsewhere, not quite present.
She knocked the table as if asking permission, though he'd heard her clearly enough. What would his answer be?
"I'll have to come home late if I do that," he said.
Photo by Kristina Tripkovic on Unsplash
Harrison finished his plate, chunks still caught between his teeth, chewing like a grumpy old man. "But you're late every day already, aren't you?"
"What else can I do?"
"It's about conscience, you know," Harrison said, the words tasting brutal on his tongue, but necessary in his mind.
"Whatever you want, do it," he continued, leaning back. "You could volunteer to be here, like once. I'm no different from those kids."
Sara's voice rose, sharp with fury. "This is not funny, Harrison. And you know it."
"Yeah, yeah. I know," he said quietly, the edge already gone from him.
"I will not go then to volunteer,"
What is remorse, after all, when something tangible exists before us? And if it doesn't, we live by the same measures anyway. A volunteer for things beyond our scope, like our own lives, which we didn't choose but somehow entered. I can understand the desire to end it all. Perhaps none of us truly volunteered; we simply arrived here somehow.
18 May 2026, Freewriters Community Daily Writing Prompt Day 3107: I’m not going to volunteer
