Remains- by Loucas Dong

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I stare down the lists of engraved names, hollow letters etched out across the array of countless tall pillars. My eyes flow past each one without a second thought, endlessly scanning stories that will never be told. Entire generations of boys forgotten in the storm. I reach out and caress the cold hard metal. Strangely, I feel empty, as if time has stopped. My mind fails to feel, fails to grasp what I am reading, what I am breathing, what I am touching, what I am. Funny. 

I catch a glimpse of my reflection on the shiny metallic surface. I look no different than a child, flimsy arms and legs sprouting like branches, with a head too big for its body and pointless tiny fingers that tremble with each passing moment. But there is no child left. The person that stands in front of me is just a shadow. 

The anger that used to burn in that boy is all but gone. Shattered when the world showed him how cruel it could really be. Besides, what could he do? He was just one boat in a raging sea, swept into a new sphere of chaos he had no control over. The hatred of officers and the jealousy of those promoted vanished too. 

The sadness is gone as well, faded until it was nothing more than a reminder of buried memories and pain. Perhaps the burden of it all killed my heart. Perhaps it's the insanity creeping up my back, eating away at me slowly but surely. Even fear is foreign after marching towards hell enough times. It’s hard to fear death when it breathes down on my shoulder, mocking me for still being alive. How I wish to turn and just let go, to leave and forget everything. But everytime I muster the strength to end it all, he disappears and leaves me alone once more. I have learned that the black dog likes to toy with its food. 

Walking mindlessly, I take out my father’s last gift. A simple pocket watch so I could remember home, where I slept listening to the tinkering of gadgets. Its once golden color is now painted anew with mud and blood. The hands of time inside stopped long ago, a memento of the days I have lost. All that is left of value is the photo of us together one last time. 

I feel the crevices and cracks on the pocket watch, turning and turning it over and over as it dances on my fingers before finally letting my legs crumple to the ground. I collapse against one of the tombstones and stare upwards at the distant clouds that float onwards towards the horizon, letting everything fall into me as I wait. 

I waited for the soft northern winds to finally take me home, when the gentle buzzing in the air came not from bombs flying through the air but from roaming bees landing on vibrant fields of poppies, entrenched not on the bodies of the fallen but on gentle earthen soil. I long to feel the first touch of grass again on the rolling hills of the countryside, free from the numbness that surrounds me now. I wish to feel the crisp clear water of streams, to sleep under the stars, to cherish my life once again. Just once again. 

I know I am lucky to still breathe the autumn air again, but deep down beneath it all, I am grateful for those that rest now. 

For only the dead have seen the end of war.

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