103 Days

Lyrics

March twenty-sixth. Sixteen seventy-six.
The day the counting started.
The air tastes of pine smoke and fear.
Day one.
Increase Mather called it a large and fair edifice.
Our meeting house.
We saw the flames take the roof.
We saw twenty-two houses turn to black bones against the sky.
We ran for the garrison walls, for Reverend Brimsmead's fortified door.
The world shrank to the width of a loophole,
the heft of a musket.
Day two. Day three.
One hundred and three days.
We marked the wall with charcoal.
One hundred and three nights.
We listened to the forest breathing.
Every snapped twig a raid.
Every shadow a ghost.
The only prayer was the click of a flintlock.
One hundred and three days.
The men took turns at the watch.
Powder horns dry, eyes raw from smoke and no sleep.
The women learned the language of silence.
A month passed.
April twenty-first, we heard the muskets crackling from Sudbury.
A battle we couldn't see.
News came on the wind, thin and cold.
Day twenty-seven. Day thirty.
One hundred and three days.
We marked the wall with charcoal.
One hundred and three nights.
We listened to the forest breathing.
Every snapped twig a raid.
Every shadow a ghost.
The only prayer was the click of a flintlock.
One hundred and three days.
The charred frame of the meeting house stood against the spring sky.
A skeleton to remind us.
The damp heat of July arrived.
The air inside the walls grew thick, heavy as a shroud.
We forgot the sun.
We forgot what it was to walk without looking over a shoulder.
Day ninety-nine. Day one hundred.
And then, nothing.
The seventh of July. The threat just... receded.
No victory bell, just the buzzing of flies.
An exhausted quiet.
We stepped out into the light, blinking.
One hundred and three days.
We never stopped counting.