They don't do anything wrong.
I'd love to be a fish because fish are just swimming. They live in a world thick with life and crowned with colorful bubbles, but they aren't in any hurry.
Fish don't got no worries.
I think I should be a alligator, laying in the sun. I could squirm myself down into the mud and wait for a hapless animal to come by, so I could spin it dead.
Fish don't got no worries.
I think I should be a alligator, laying in the sun. I could squirm myself down into the mud and wait for a hapless animal to come by, so I could spin it dead.
Not a stray thought in my goddamn head.
If I had my druthers, though, I'd be a cat. Cats don't give too much of a shit about anything. Cats are napping when they aren't being apex predators. Veld editors.
Me?
I'm always hiding from creditors.
So, maybe I'll just be ash. Not dust. Dust is chaos. I've seen enough chaos. Ash is noble.
Ash used to be something.
(Save for Mader comment)
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ReplyDeleteYulia had been sitting in a patch of grass on the edge of their makeshift camp with her coffee and a prayer, a morning ritual to strengthen her for the day, when a guy from her unit strolled up, a big grin on his broad farmboy face.
ReplyDelete“Tell me.” Yulia invited him to sit and he plopped down beside her. He could always be counted on for a good joke in dark times, and times had indeed been dark. The world was slowly forgetting them, abandoning them. Finding that there wasn’t room in their budget for weapons for a war that couldn’t be won. Or accommodations for refugees in their rich nations.
“There’s talk that our friend in Moscow has a cold.”
Yulia smirked. She’d studied her Russian history. The Soviet era was replete with leaders rumored to have minor ailments that culminated in somber announcements of death only a short time later. “They’re still using that old line, are they? If only it was the truth.”
“This time I think it is,” Piotr said. “They say he hasn’t been seen out in public in a week.”
“From your lips to God’s ear,” Yulia said.
“I have dreamed of this day,” Piotr said. “Putting away my rifle, seeing my folks again.”
Yulia nodded. She could stand never to shoot another bullet in her lifetime, but she had no family to return to. Her neighborhood in Kiev had been destroyed, her parents killed by Russian snipers while they tended their farm. And her child? No, she admonished herself. Not her child anymore. Never really was her child. Just a soul passing through her body meant for a different and better life.
“This I hope for you,” she said, and slugged down the rest of her coffee. Wishing she had more. Wishing she had something stronger. The prayer wasn’t doing it that day. Winter was creeping in and her boots were beyond repair and they were told to conserve ammunition and fuel.
“You watch,” he said. “It will be true and this will all be over. And you can go…wherever you want to go and find new students to teach.”
“Sure. I’ll open my own studio and you will be my first model.”
“Nude, of course,” he said, puffing out his chest. “Because it’s art. And we cannot deprive the world of art.”
She laughed. Patted Piotr on the shoulder. “No,” she said. “We couldn’t possibly.”
They sat in silence for a moment, then Piotr spoke. “Captain said we’re moving out in fifteen. We got intel on a drone launch site, and they need us to confirm.”
Yulia took a deep breath and exhaled slowly, nodding. She needed more courage. More prayer. “I’ll be a minute,” she said.
Piotr stood. “I’ll see you then. I gotta go take a whiz.”
He left and she asked God to give her strength, and she was thinking it was time to pack up and get moving when the earth shook with a roar. All around her then was chaos and rifles and soldiers shouting orders.
Then silence. Then the all clear.
“Move out!” came the order.
She picked herself up and looked around, couldn’t find Piotr. She’d started in the direction of the makeshift latrine and another soldier grabbed her, steered her toward the pack.
“We have to go,” he said.
“But—”
“You don’t want to look,” he said under his breath.
Her stomach lurched. Then tightened with anger. She could barely get the word out. “Landmine?” In his eyes was the answer. “Bastards,” she muttered. “I hope his cold is permanent.”
“Cold?”
“Piotr”—her voice broke, and she told him about the old Soviet reference.
“I hear it’s—” His words were swallowed up by a cheer at the front of the battalion.
It was a moment before she could make out what they were saying. He was dead. So it was true. He was dead and this could be over.
-----
After the war ended, mostly by indifference from the new leader, it took a while for Yulia to adapt to anything close to a normal life. Not in the city she’d loved so dearly, in the country she’d risked everything to save. And it took an even longer time for her to pick up her sketchpad again. When she did, it was to capture his portrait. Clothed in his uniform, of course, because it was meant for her parents. It was meant for the world, so they would not forget.