#alex experienced his big something else firsthand

[blue-echoinglights]

Sky to ground, a careful creature

made friends with even opposites of the earth......

There’s something strangely hypnotic about fire, you think.

It’s not alive, but there is a certain spirit to it. It dances, teasing a flick of heat into the night air, shifting to tiptoe across the logs you’ve built it upon. It sways with every breath of the wind, and if you didn’t already know that it was soundless besides the occasional pop or crackle, you’d assume it would sing.

Finally moving your eyes from the flickering of the fire to the wisps of ascending smoke, you trail your gaze into the heavens. The night is still young, and the stars are beginning to breach the tree line. With the west wind comes a sense of cool freshness, but you can’t help but feel a bit lost. Directionless.

You’re broken out of your musings by the hesitant warmth of a canine tongue on one fingertip. The pup is looking up at you with eyes that seem too old, too knowing of the emptiness that seems to be emanating from your chest. But, in a blink, the look is gone, replaced with its regular playful wolfishness and a slow tail wag.

You give him a small smile, and begin to scratch under his muzzle, the spot that makes his leg thump in a pleased rhythm. You hum. “You always seem to know when I’m getting too lost, huh, boy.” More scratches. The wind shifts direction, and the smoke swept into your face makes your eyes sting.

You sigh, and take a moment to lose yourself in the warmth and flickering flames of the fire before you. Through the waves of heat, you see the telltale red leather of your notebook tucked innocently amongst your bedroll. You stare for too long, eyes unseeing.

The water pooling in your eyes is not from the smoke, but you shift positions anyways.

“I think it’s time for a little night stroll, wha’dya think?” Your canine friend tips his head with bright eyes, tail scratching arcs into the forest floor. There’s an excited woof, and you laugh. “Ok, let me grab my coat, and we’ll go for a little adventure.”

The notebook remains carefully on the edges of your vision as you ruffle through your pack and shrug on your coat. You pretend your hands aren’t shaking. You are running, you coward. Just like you always have.

There’s flashes. Faces, open and free in a laugh, in horror. A cry of joy, a cry of agony-

Hyeong-jun

Navi

Mia

Luke

Tao

why did you - should -have  - you must go - i won’t just abandon - there’s a thundering in the ground, the rumbling of artillery - the walls are cracked and worn, and the bloodied hand that reaches to caress your face is just as scarred - there’s a horrible keening, straining your throat and echoin-

“Jeremiah.”

A hand scrubs frantically across your cheek, and you resist the urge to check if it’s stained red. You know it won’t be. The phantom warmth of viscous liquid remains, sunk into your skin.  

There’s a claw digging into your knee, and a whine that cuts through the haze.

“Oh, hush, Jaq, I’m coming. Just got.....lost.” Jaq barks and pushes off his leg to bound toward the treeline, slobbered tongue flopping without dignity. You huff, “You mutt! Wait for your old man.”

Despite the hour, the trees are easy to navigate in the starlight. It casts an eerie glow, but you can’t help but feel relieved. Worse things had happened in broad daylight, anyways.

I told you to go! For once in your life, listen to your commander!

I can’t ju-

Please! If not your commander, listen to your father.

p l e as e just-  

I-

-Go.

Jaq is barking again. You’re choking on a sob, hands fisted in the pine needles splayed out on the forest floor. You don’t remember sinking to your knees, or feeling the now sharp sting behind your eyelids.

You are a soldier, you think. You knew it was going to be difficult. You grew up as the son of a military family. You had gone to more funerals by age ten than most civilians had by age 50. You knew.

But you could not have known. No human could truly know this sort of agony, until they had experienced it themselves firsthand.

You recognize that your throat is burning, that your shouts and cries are ripping apart the hushed tranquility of the darkness around you. You scream, It’s not fair, they should have taken me instead, it’s not fair it’s not fair I would rather just have died myself then live with out you-  nobody could have known I just needed more time its not FAIR -

Jaq is there, pushing his weight against your torso and grounding you to the dirt, the dirt you had wished had just taken you instead. He’s pushing his muzzle against your sore throat, and your unsteady hands grip his fur with desperation. Spit bubbles on your trembling lip, the fury from before long dissipated. Your voice drops to a whisper. “How could you have gone without me?”

The forest does not answer.

But the wind whispers, and the stars blink high above, persistent in their gift of sight. The tear tracks on your cheeks glisten like rivulets of silver.

“Dad, why do the stars blink at us?”

You’re six, the age of big questions and an even bigger world. You’re swinging your feet at the kitchen table, and your father is cleaning one of his pistols. He picks up a rag, freshly oiled, and begins to work it between the engraved ridges of the metal. He lifts his gaze up, eyes distant, but still playful. “What do you think?”

You always liked that about dad. He never did the hard work for you. He made you think. “Well.....I always thought they was like eyes, b’cus- sometimes they cry. Right? The rain?”

“’Were like’.” He corrects, gently. He’s set the pistol down, and his eyes have settled on his scar again. The one that ran past his thumb, curling around his wrist like a snake. He never talks about it.

He huffs a laugh, gaze finally lifting, and drops next to you at the table.

“Well then, whose eyes are they?” You know that to anybody else, they would think Dad is mocking you by asking. What soldier cares about the stars? But you know, no. Dad does. Dad always cares.

You frown and tilt your head, thinking. “I  think...I think that ey’re are all the people who love us, but can’t see us on earth no more, So they blink, so we know they see us.” Your eyes light up, lit with an epiphany. “Like a night light!!”  You turn to look at your father, and startle to see the full focus of his gaze on you. The scar soon takes his attention again as he leans back with a chuckle, voice a little too hoarse and eyes distant again. He hums, in thought.

He quirks his mouth in a slight grin, and his gaze softens as it lands on you. “Well, then maybe I’ll be up there too someday, and I’d be proud to be your nightlight.” He stands and presses a quick kiss to your forehead, laughing as you squirm.

“But don’t worry, I won’t leave just yet. I have a little kiddo to tease first.” The soft look is gone, replaced with his trademark mischievous grin.

You’re instantly on the defensive. “I’M NOT tic’lish! I promise!”

He laughs, a full sound that fills the too-empty house. The stars blink through the window, ceaseless in their provided light.

You realize that the forest has gone silent again. Jaq is still lying in your lap, and the chill of the late hour has started to seep into your bones. You’re still staring into the heavens, watching the pinpricks of light shift in their positions.

Your gaze finally focuses, and know what you must do.

.

You had taken this trip in the hopes of escaping the people, mostly. They had congratulated you, speaking of honor and bravery and sacrifice and most of all, ‘heroism’. You had felt like laughing in their face. War doesn’t make you a hero. War makes you a murderer, and at best, dead. 

How could you say you were honorable when those names lay listed in your notebook, crossed about and never to be spoken again? When you had to face a teenager’s mother and practically say, “I’m sorry for your loss, your son spent his last moments vomiting his intestines and praying for me to forgive him?”

They worshiped the heroes, singing praise about ‘patriotism’ and ‘fighting the good fight.’ How the people who go to battle are deserving of respect, and love and support.

There is none left for a soldier who returns from war. There is no good fight. There are no heroes. Only broken men. And people would rather live in a daydream than acknowledge they were sending their sons to die.

.

Your footsteps make no sound as they cross across the pine needles, and Jaq has returned to his favored position alongside your left leg. His presence is a constant reminder that even in this mundane task of walking, you still have a willing friend.

The fire has been reduced to embers since your walk, but it doesn’t take much to pile on more logs and light the kindling with a small match. You shake your fingertips to rid them of the match’s sting, and stand back to watch the flames grow.

There is one more task you know you must do. Eyes flick towards your bedroll.

Hesitation.

This is childish, you think. Soldiers don’t believe in the stars. There is nothing pure on this Earth that soldiers believe in, not really. You stand there, breathing in the smoke, letting the weight of that thought settle in.

Then- But I’m not a soldier.

Mind made, you take a step towards your notebook. I am a brother in arms. Another step. I am a fighter, step, a lover, step, a man, step, a friend. When you’ve reached the notebook, your shadow darkening it’s soft leather cover, you take a breath.

I am a son.

Your fingers grip the red leather, darkened already by consistent use. It takes more effort than you’d like to admit, to flip that first page. You may have done it hundreds of times, but this time is different than the rest.

1/03 Nick

1/22 Hyeong-jun

2/ 02 Alex

4/04 Navi

9/15 Mia

10/22 Luke

6/ 24 Rosa

8/25 Yijun

The list stretches for several pages, names of people long gone. Some older, some newer, but of the same pain and longing nonetheless.

As you flip through each page, each memory, the pain in your chest tightens. There, at the final page, scratched with innocent blue ink, sits one final name.

_/_ Jeremiah

No date, but you knew it was coming. You had waited for the day you knew you were going to die, for the date where someone would finally lay you to rest.

With trembling fingers, you rip the section from the page.

Jaq noses your leg, giving wet kisses of reassurance. You grin weakly as you stand, tucking the torn paper in your pocket. One last thing, you think, staring at the notebook held loosely in your fingertips.

It takes a step to approach the fire, the flames still dancing lightly as they were before. With heart held in your throat, your fingers reach and let go.

The notebook burns just like anything before it, unknowing of the weight it had carried. With every wisp of paper that drifts into the air, the tightness in your chest loosens. Each name grays, cracks, and swirls within the fire, becoming one with the waltz of heat and flame.

As they swirl into the night, you realize that this is what breathing feels like.

Maybe it was a childish fantasy. Maybe the stars truly do not provide sight. But just this once, you think, and smile up into the night.

Maybe they’ll see better from up there.

.

Behind your back, a single star blinks brighter, ever vigilant in its careful watch.

.

.

.

End