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2dimensionalcutout · 7 years ago

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Why?

There is a sound when a heart breaks. But it doesn't have the quality of a sound. Rather it comes through the sobs, the words said, and those left unspoken.

It is a personal thing, heartbreak. The feeling of your world being torn asunder, a void left in the wake of a person brutally ripped from under you. It leaves you bereft, screaming into the void over and over again, expecting a voice that can no longer be heard to answer you.

And you did, yours was a simple question, perhaps with a simple answer, but one you may never know, how hard you scream into the void where she once was. 'Why?'

I heard the sound as your world ripped in two. I intruded on that private moment, I heard the sound of your heartbreak. Through the sound of your sobs, the words you said and those you left unsaid. From the sound of your voice echoing in the void, and the pause as you expected a voice that would never come.

I was just a stranger on the end of a phone. Someone you have never met, and likely never will. And I heard the rising panic in your voice as you read words no one should ever read. I heard the din of your world crashing around you. And the empty echo of your voice in the void.

Never have I felt more alien than in that moment, intruding in your own personal catastrophe. And yet you relied on me to keep you from falling into the void you shouted into so hard, and I let you down. All I could do was about questions at you when what you needed was answers.

'Are you okay?' The stupidest thing I could ask, yet the only one that came to mind. And I know you didn't hear it, because it wasn't the voice you were listening for.

'What can you see?' I made you look hard at something that you should never have had to see at all.

But worst of all, I didn't have that answer you needed to much, and I fear I never will.

'Why?'

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2dimensionalcutout · 7 years ago

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Fear and Loathing in El Campo

The Spanish sun beat down on grass long since dyed brown. Two thin lines of red cut across the field, drawing a line that would not be crossed without payment. Pipeclayed uniforms glowed bright white, as men baked in the dyed wool, powdered hair pulling tight on scalps already trickling with sweat.

Almost in unison a thousand muskets rose at once, causing the light to flicker and dance across the ground, ignorant of the darkness that was about to follow. From behind mounted figures in trimmed finery shouted orders that were followed without being heard, for each man was listening for something else. Their ears straining above the gentle rustle of a slight breeze.

A bead of sweat ran from beneath the hair set solid on his scalp, down his freshly shaven cheeks, and behind the leather stock around his neck. He ignored the urge to scratch it, knowing that movement would being them closer, instead he put up with the itch until it faded. Eyes scanning endlessly across the horizon, ears pushing for more, nothing mattered more than being ready.

As if in defiance of his stillness his mind raced, recalling home. Images of narrow cobbled streets with houses that seemed to reach into the sky forever on either side. The sound of drinking glasses and sussuration of a hundred conversations in the drinking houses. A warm fire with demure, motherly figure tidying around it. All of these playing across his mind, distracting him, teasing him with things he would never see.

A clenched jaw is the only sign of him trying to push the thoughts away, although that only bade them to come faster, and more vividly. Every attempt to push them away brought more, moments long forgotten and places he never thought he would miss. If it wasn't for the fear, he would feel homesick. But none of that would matter if he wasn't READY.

He risked a glance to each side, to see how the others were holding up. To his left, lost in memories, a young man he had never seen before. His eyes were piercing blue, and glintes in the light, no doubt remembering some beau back home he wished to impress. What the hell he was doing here instead of with her was anyone's guess. 'Maybe I can ask him if we get through this...' he wonders, before part of him dismisses it as wishful thinking. 'Even if we both make it to tomorrow, I'll probably never seem him again.'

To his right an older soldier stood ready, face long scarred with powder burns, hair turning grey at the temples. He didn't seem to show the same fear, or the same longing. He just looked...bored?

But that wasn't true. Everyone knew Perkins was an old hand. Sent to war years ago to avoid the rope, he had killed his way across India, France, Spain and back again. And yet that one night, deep into some drink plundered from some Noble's house in what seemed another life, he said something no one had expected. He was afraid.

Not of death mind you. 'Death comes to us all,' he had slurred, the room enraptured by his words suddenly falling silent, shadows from the fire dancing across the wall behind them seeming to take on a ghostly bent in the bow maudlin silence.

'Death comes to us all sooner or later... But the Surgeon only comes for the unlucky, the damned. Many men as have been shot in battle have been forced endure his blade...and the poorest wretches survive it. The luckiest pass out before they die.' Some in the room tutted, only to be silenced by the others, 'in Sarangapatam, I saw a street lines with those poor bastards. Penniless, legless, some without eyes or hands. Faces scarred and twisted, brave soldiers with no work, reduced to begging for scraps from those they used to fight with...' his words slowly getting quiter, until only those next to him heard the end. Stories of men who survived battle, only to be broken by the Surgeon.

That was the fear that ran deep beneath Perkin's calm exterior. And the one that chilled even in the beating sun.

All of a sudden a low pounding catches the end of hearing. First seemingly imagined, then it resolved into something real. They were here.

The rhythm was getting closer, almost close enough to make if out. If only his heart would stop beating. If only the pounding in his ears would stop. If only-there. There it was. Beyond the panic, past the fear, hiding behind the adrenaline.

'Vive L'Empror'

The words of the enemy. Signalling to their Emperor that they would die in his name. Signalling to him that soon, one way or another, it would be over.

Orders barked again, and muskets were readied. Another, followed by the ripple of wood on earth, as muskets were rested on the floor. The scrapes of ramrods on steel seemed to last an eternity, but not as long as the taste of gun powder and lead as he bit the cartridge. His eyes never left the horizon as he reloaded without thinking.

Place the musket down. Bite the cartridge. Pour the powder into the barrel. Spit the ball into the barrel. Draw the rod. Ram the powder home. Replace the rod. Pour powder into the frizzen. Ready. These had been practiced thousands of time in the past. Until the body didn't need the mind to do it anymore. Just the hands.

But never like this. Never for real.

Place. Bite. Pour. Spit. Draw. Ram. Replace. Pour. Ready. They did it flawlessly. Eyes never once diverting from where they would come.

Another order, followed by not heard, and the front line dropped to one knee.

A second, and muskets rose, a wave of light sprinting across the field as the sun reflected off their barrels.

The words were clear now. 'Vive L'emperor... Vive L'emperor...'

Sweat poured down his face, and into his eye. A crimson sleeve darted across his face, trying to stop him going blind when he didn't need it. His musket wavering as he did so.