Over the Top

Everything was gone.

Not the stones, the temple, nor the little angel girl.

He was alone.

The field returned to green-wasteland form. A baseness entered him from head-to-toe, filling him with some sense of normality even in such an unnerving environment. The twilight wind seemed to bring an echo of a voice, but such things were tricks of the mind. Familiarity only brought him partial sanity, however. After all, Io, that winged girl, had left him here with a mere hand-wave and a throwaway phrase.

Wait, Io! He remembered!

Io! Io! Io! That name! That wondrous name!

He remembered. Dave had claimed something from this world; the image and memory of someone! In the land where April was the cruelest month, such trifles were fleeting and disposable. An image could warp and break, and memory suffused with sanguine. Remembrance kept was an insult to the living, so it was best to forget. But he had done it! Something had overcome his frigid shell and warmed his heart!

Now, he had to fulfill another obligation.

“Watermann… she said to follow my heart. I’ll find you. I know it.”

Then, as if being reeled in by a thread of fate, his heart tugged. A higher being had taken control of his body, and he felt himself animate without consent, but of sheer will. He didn’t need to pull out his compass to begin running, or to hold his rifle in both hands, even to note his surroundings like a soldier should. His instinct knew.

The lieutenant ran much like other men; a frenzied, disorderly hobbling towards the end. No child-like grace nor playfulness when passing a ball, no teen-aged infatuated run to a first date, it was the run of the modern man. Man in this age was a fighting man. Nothing more, nothing less. He was born to crash into the jaws of concertina wire, bred to hop over yawning shell holes, and lived to tread where no man could. So hostile was this world they were born into that man could master nothing but to run away.

Sprinting with rifle in hand, the invisible fountains of dead earth and rattling brass echoed throughout. Faint screams of the damned and dying, aucht millimeter cutting through the air, howling jets of molten fire, such sounds were dissonant and unfit for the soul. The ground was solid under his feet, and he kept running.

Blinded by the movement of fate, Dave could hardly notice the thinning fog, returning gracefulness and thickening of the grass. He ran into a small grove, at the center of which stood a mount. The imposing conifers, verdant and tall, crowded like men in a train station. Flowers once again began to sprout from his feet. Dave’s pack swung side to side, and the clatter of equipment served an intoxicating song to the deluded man. A small puddle rapidly set before him, and before the mind could hesitate, his legs leaped forward and over the obstacle. The dimpled earth gave way, and lo, the mount appeared.

His climb began immediately. Such was the inclination of this mount that he struggled to keep pace, but even through ragged breath, the lieutenant continued.

A ring of flowers surrounded the summit. The climb was agony; he wanted to dissolve. As he clawed up the hill, the flowers came into view: dandelions, sunflowers, and an exotic purple he couldn’t recognize. Two species enjoyed more real estate, however.

Blue and red poppies.

Bleeding from out the earth.

Dave half-stood, entering the ring as the flowers grappled his boots and tangled his shoelaces, making him fall into a bed of Mother Nature’s making. The petals cut into his skin, and he could see the poppies in various positions from his own hand: dismembered, tangled, slouched, and lifeless. The officer slung his rifle onto his back, removed his pistol from its holster, and raised it defiantly into the air. A final call for the dead: To arms! A call to those discomforted in their final rest! He swore that a verey pistol replaced his own. The sky darkened, and he slipped his trench whistle in his mouth. Sulfur and rust came from the soil, into the flowers, and made a sickly perfume. All just for a moment. He kept crawling, pistol in hand, as the stems kept restraining every movement. The poppies—he could hear them crying. Each one sounded like them. Those that he… Dave now understood the heavy burden of memory. This is what she meant. Heavy, heavy, was the toll.

But the struggle kept him pinned to the ground, tangled in anguish among the poppies. He seethed and groveled, trying to move past such an insignificance, but couldn’t. Time ceased. Dave’s eyes wandered, and he beheld at the very end of the ring a single, bloomed rose. The fires of his core roared again, and he inched ever closer to the flower.

One after the other, one after the other, others after the first, his body moved forward. This is what all struggle means! This is what man labors for! The rose at the end of the wire!

Finally, he held her in his arms.

Caring not for the digging thorns, he snipped the rose and felt a resurgence. A life’s labor, all those he left behind, all those he owed, shall begin again, like the seeping blood from his fingers.

Slowly, he lifted himself and staggered up the hill. He reached the precipice and knew what he would find. Relief washed over him, buckling his knees as if struck, and collapsing into the soft grass of the peak. The pistol fell from his fingers as they unwrapped, curling gently outwards from the trigger gate. It all faded from him, but here, he was happy it was.

A gently slumbering private, and a being of light.

“You’ve come a long way, my child. Please, sit down.”

Thus, the sermon began.