WALKER
I watched the sun rise over the trench. Gorgeous rays of red tinted with orange. It looked like spilled watercolour on wet golden paper. Creases folded where the paint ran over the delicate surface and settled. I drew in a mix of mangy, recycled air and inspiration to my lungs. How I wished that I’d had a piece of paper and pen. Magical, beautiful things would be written.
I dared to climb the edge of the trench and scan the barren beyond. The sunrise bled from a twisted gash of knotted wire, barbed, rusted and deadly. Once again, I reminded myself to take pliers and snap every string of the nasty jagged stuff in the country, just as soon as this war was done.
Things were almost peaceful as a swallow, the first I’d seen that year, danced its lonely dance over no man’s land.
I wondered what kind of point would be made if someone shot the little thing in mid air. I wouldn’t have hesitated in standing and spitting sharp, abusive words across the field, regardless of what language the enemy understood.
When the civil war had broken out, I’d written many of my poems from the sickly inspiration that came with the knowledge that i had been schooled... brought up alongside some of the men I was now pointing a rifle to. They were dark and depressing pieces that I had not long burned to keep me warm. The act itself held messages.
A rat scuttled around my feet, making me dance like an idiot in surprise. I hoped that the wretched thing would be entirely stewed to feed the opposition, plague and all.
It was then that I heard a gunshot. It was an un-welcomed break in the morning solitude. I thought of the little swallow and scrambled up the trench’s muddy side. An aeroplane pierced the morning above me. I recognised the blue and gold star winking, proud and garish, on the underside of the wing and waved energetically. Perhaps a little something inside of me was hoping they would ground them selves on no man’s land and pull me into the small cargo hold, aiding my escape of this torturous place.
I sometimes amuse myself in the thought that swallow was perhaps the freed soul of a long-gone comrade - the little beast trigored a sequence of events leeding simultaneously into my liberty and to my imprisonment. Perhaps if the swallow hadn't danced so temptingly for the oposition, frightening me into checking if it was alive when i heard the gunshot, I would never have waved to that plane (which, incidently, never landed) and perhaps I would have avoided the gunshot that pierced my left shoulder, shattering it and spreading pain like an unstoppable, lightening fungus down the left side of my body.
By the time I had been moved, writhing, to the hospital behind the front line, my shoulder had begun a wonky healing. The medics doubted i would ever regain total use of it; the pain whenever I moved my arm was excruciating. But not as excruciating as the other pain...
Why on earth had I waved with my writing arm?! That bullet gave me a ticket out of the war but I paid a valid and painful price – my writing.
No more vigorous or energetic poems. No more epic and heart-wrenching ballads. Gone were my days of beautiful and romantic sonnets, and witty but quick haikus. Itchy fingers. That’s what I referred to it as in my head. The days of itchy fingers had descended.
What was most infuriating was that my fingers could move, couldn’t they? I could use them couldn’t I? So why was it that it hurt so much to try?
At the time, I didn’t let the pain of it all sting me too deep or I would have died anyway. The realisation was a poison injection to my heart. Proof that freedom was to be paid for was evident and written on my face as I lay tired and hateful in my hospital bed. At least the injury prevented me from handling a rifle. No more days of being a soldier. Though no more days of being a human. It truly did make me wonder what else I would use my time on in my days left. I didn’t think of much. Nothing could quite feed my hungry imagination like a poem could. Nothing quite quench my inspirational thirst.
When seeing how down-trodden I was, the doctor asked me if I would like them to take the arm. I was shocked. There was no way that I would let them take the final reminder of my poetic days. No way at all. My hand had been my assistant for so long. It had helped me channel all of my creativity and with nothing there, I would feel sick. Besides, I didn’t much like the thought of not having an arm – being squeamish as I am – and I hadn’t totally lost the use of it. It was still useable, in a way. It was just painful to move, but once I had moved it, the pain left. Slightly impractical...? Yes. Slightly uncomfortable...? Yes... but better than nothing, after all.
I was so sure that I could leave the ward that the nurses started to take offence. When I refused things, saying I wouldn’t be staying much longer, they seemed to take it as an insult. Still, as time went on, they started to forgive me a little. I think they saw how much I was paying for everything on the inside. I was happy not to be in that trench, the one that some of my best friends had died in... but I didn’t think it was quite worth it. In fact, the more I thought of it, the less I honestly believed it. In a way, they had won. At least, for me, we had lost the battle. I know that is a stupid thing to believe – comrades and families had paid dearer. It was selfish to think that all of those people had died and a simple thing like a bullet in a shoulder was somehow worth their sacrifice. And after that realisation, I was just ashamed.... thoroughly and utterly ashamed.
A nurse came through the doors and wandered up to my bedside. In a way, I was used to her face. It brought me back down to earth again because I could see that really, she cared. It was because I had fought. I could tell the cowards from the heroes because of the way the nurse’s expressions changed. Many of the people who were getting away from the gunfire were people who only thought of themselves. They were the ones who left their friends to die and sat feeling sorry for themselves.
The nurse didn’t look at me like that. She knew that was against the war but i had fought, none-the-less. She knew i suffered differently... how much I wanted to write again. She understood how angry I was when I saw the other soldiers writing letters home... how bitter and cold my blood ran through my veins. I clenched my fist, biting my lip and feeling the surge of pain turn to tears that misted my eyes. I was going to teach myself to love the pain... or at least to live with it.
The nurse straightened out the sheets on the spare bed beside me and fluffed up the pillow, ready for the next injured soldier. “It’s sleeting outside. Not quite snowing, not quite raining.”
I frowned. “Yeah... the irritating in-between. The middle ground. Not quite cold enough to get excited over, and still wet enough to get your clothes damp and give you a chill.”
She raised an eyebrow, but I wasn’t paying attention. “Why are you always so depressing? I don’t understand.” She laughed and started to walk over to the other patients. “It wouldn’t do you any harm to look on the brighter side.”
I felt like saying that the brighter side was far less interesting, far too obvious and far too easy to believe. It was only ever worth it when you got something bright out of the depressing side, although I was yet to do that. But I didn’t say anything at all. I just sat up and watched the next soldier being carried in.
It was ten minutes until a damp looking doctor swept in. I didn’t really recognise him. He was always somewhere else, no doubt, with someone in more physical, believable... fathomable pain.
“Walker.”
I knew he was referring to me, but I didn’t answer.
“You can go. No doubt you’ll be disappointed to hear that you won’t be fighting, but your arm is too damaged. Maybe in a few years, if this thing is still rolling on... but don’t hold your breath.”
I got the point and stood up from my bed. My feet barely felt as though they were there. It was just air around the bottom of my legs. I said good bye to all of the nurses that were around and thanked the doctors. I gave a good luck and a quick right-hand shake – to those who could receive it – to all of the soldiers who I had been suffering with over my seemingly unnecessary stay.
It was indeed sleeting outside. The softness and coolness of it was refreshing for me. But I didn’t stay too long before I started on the road. In a sense, I was free. In another sense, I was totally trapped forever. I had a constant reminder anytime I did anything that I enjoyed and there was nothing that could be done.
Still, I tried to take the advice of my nurses and be a little optimistic as I strode along the road towards whatever town I neared first.
It was about twenty minutes, maybe more, before I saw the first houses. There was a check point, but the guards saw my uniform and my blood-blotched sling before let me through without a word. I marched on without paying them any attention.
My feet were suddenly present again. I could feel them crunching on the grit that scattered the road. And not long after, they were sure again – I moved swiftly along the concrete with my right hand in my pocket. I sidestepped some jagged pins that were on the road, precariously and looked ahead at a bike that someone had abandoned after apparently having had their tires punctured.
Then I looked to my right as a strolled and saw something that was so beautiful and picturesque, it almost made me cry. Half a meter from the road, separated by a tiny grass verge running along the edge, there spread a vast and chilling lake. It waters were violet and blue reflections of the cold winter sky. Glitter rippled over it’s surface. It was so beautiful, I came to a halt.
If ever there has been a time when I have wanted to write a poem so badly that it hurt, it was then. I just tried to remember to breathe as the colours shimmered and changed. Sometimes, something is so beautiful that the colours and shapes are almost echoing the most glorious noises like a symphony. I wondered if it was possible that there were angels under the waters, singing soft songs.
What made it all the more spectacular was that there was a huge lump of rock towering above the lake itself on the other side. I knew what this was. The mountain was the second and largest of three – It was called Felra, named after a supposed ancient queen. The other two mountains seemed like ants compared to the glory of Felra. It reigned over everything except the lake. It wasn’t all that high in reality. From the distance it was at now from me, with only the lake in between, it definitely looked climbable in a day or less, perhaps only a hundred feet or so up. Not difficult in the least. But in reality, I knew it was far higher than it seemed. Nobody had ever reached further than one particular jutting edge – that was the measuring point. They always were found dead in the lake or were never found at all. Nobody really knew why but some speculated that there were spirits of the lake and mountains that guarded it. I thought it was all a crock of poetic nonsense.
I stood for a few minutes, watching the colours of the water dance on the base of Felra before I turned and decided that if I wanted to sleep under a roof tonight, I had better find it.
It was then, though, that I saw something incredible. Something that lit a wick in my mind and I felt an excitement bubble up inside of me at the sight. Firstly, and to my horror, there was a person falling very fast down the side of the mountain. I wasn’t sure where in the clouds they had broken through or what they had been doing, but they were falling very, very quickly and looked either dead or unconscious. And then, something rose from the water. In fact, it was the water. Somebody or something made of water grew up from the surface and held out two arms. And like that, the person had been caught. They weren’t hurt at all from what I could see. The impact hadn’t damaged them at all.
I stood in shock and watched this figure from the water for a minute or so when it stayed un-swaying. Then, as suddenly as it had appeared, it jerked down again back underneath the water. This was horrifying, not only because I couldn’t watch it anymore, but mainly because it had taken then person with it.
.