Beneath a Scarlet Sky

by Mark T. Sullivan

men arguing over nothing but the sheer Italian love of verbal battle and mock outrage.

:D

“Rita,” Pino said with a sigh after a series of spiral moves had swept Hayworth’s dress about her legs like a matador’s cape.

Classy & classic romance

Pino had never seen dead people before, and began to cry himself. Nothing will ever be the same.

Nothing is gained by war only lost.

“There is no trick,” Tullio said, sobering. “Number one thing? Listen.”

What wome want...spot on!

“Most guys don’t listen. They just start blabbing on about themselves. Women need to be understood.

golden rule of relationships

“He loves your mama.” “He doesn’t show it. It’s like he’s afraid to.”

Love can be so ironic...when you love so much you bece to scared to show it and even treat the ones you love like you don't care to hide from fear yet lose love

He’d had to think constantly, evaluate constantly, and rely on faith, which he realized was tiring—not easy to sustain at all. Pino guzzled water, thinking, But I did it. I made it up the hard way on my own.

A life lesson about facing challenges

his mind once again lurched between the emotions of seeing Tullio die and the music he’d felt kissing Anna. Riding the birdcage elevator past the Nazi sentries, he thought, God giveth, and God taketh away. Sometimes in the same day.

Was this what God wanted for him? To lose a hero, find love, and endure his brother’s scorn, all in one day?

“How do you find happiness?” Anna paused, then said, “You start by looking right around you for the blessings you have. When you find them, be grateful.”

“Father Re says the same thing,” Pino said. “He says to give thanks for every day, no matter how flawed. And to have faith in God and a better tomorrow.”

The best thing is to grieve for the people you loved and lost, and then welcome and love the new people life puts in front of you.”

Maybe that’s all it takes for the future to exist, Pino thought. You must imagine it first. You must dream it first.

As far as Pino was concerned, wars were about murder and thievery. One army killed to steal the hill; then another killed to steal it back.

For many hours on that hill that day there was little sound save that of spring birds and insects, and a warm breeze carried the scent of fields under plow. It all made Pino realize that the earth did not know war, that nature would go on no matter what horror one man might inflict on another. Nature didn’t care a bit about men and their need to kill and conquer.

young and in love. Isn’t it remarkable that something like that can happen in the middle of a war? It says something about the inherent goodness of life, despite all the evil we’ve seen.”

“Faith is a strange creature,” Schuster said. “Like a

falcon that nests year after year in the same place, but then flies away, sometimes for years, only to return again, stronger than ever.”

Pino remembered her telling him that she didn’t believe much in the future, that she tried to live moment by moment, looking for reasons to be grateful, trying to create her own happiness and grace, and to use them as a means to a good life in the present and not a goal to be achieved some other day.

He would pursue happiness above all, and he would do so con smania.

We never know what will happen next, what we will see, and what important person will come into our life, or what important person we will lose. Life is change, constant change, and unless we are lucky enough to find comedy in it, change is nearly always a drama, if not a tragedy. But after everything, and even when the skies turn scarlet and threatening, I still believe that if we are lucky enough to be alive, we must give thanks for the miracle of every moment of every day, no matter how flawed. And we must have faith in God, and in the Universe, and in a better tomorrow, even if that faith is not always deserved.”