by Donald Brown
When she looked into the eyes of the man she had married, it felt as if she was staring at someone completely different. It was still mostly the same George on the outside: a handsome face with short black hair, high cheek bones and blue eyes. Yet, those eyes now appeared vacant, lifeless and murky, as if the things the owner had witnessed had shut them down completely. He was peering at her through these empty, sunken eyes and Dorothy felt sorry for him, felt sorry for all of them.
They beheld each other for a moment, almost like strangers would be when bumping into each other in a public place, then Dorothy took hold of his shoulder. “George!” she exclaimed, a bit too loud, almost as if she was imploring the George of old to reveal himself. “Thank God you’re alive. I’ve missed you so much, my love!”
He grimaced at her while weakly shrugging his shoulders and she then hugged him around his waist, yet it was not returned. Dorothy was surprised to feel how thin George had become, it almost felt as if she was hugging a skeleton covered in skin and clothes.
“I’m back,” he finally said, tightening his jaw.
She then guided the lost soul back to their home, the rest of the people of Zion making way, while most of their eyes were still on the damaged soldiers streaming in through the gate.
Like Mr. Meyers said, Dorothy thought to herself, a sorry state.
Once they were inside, she helped George to sit down at the dining table before adding more wood to the fire and putting on a pot of coffee. She took a seat across from him and stared at his incredibly thin figure. It sadly made her think of an antelope she had once seen as it was being hunted down by a lioness; weak and defenseless.
There was a moment’s silence as the couple that had spent months apart was figuring out what to say to each other. George’s eyes were fixed on the table and Dorothy was watching the water come to a boil on the coal stove.
“What happened out there, George?” she eventually asked. “Can you… I mean, can you talk to me about any of it?”
He looked at her and now, in the dim light of their cozy little house, Dorothy was shocked to see that his eyes were red. She did not know how bad it had been on the battlefield, but she was expecting the absolute worst.
“Please… Dorothy,” George replied, his voice trembling. “Please don’t ask me about it, not today.” He buried his face in his hands and then began to sob like a child.
“Oh, George!” she exclaimed and clasped his hand. Then she hurried to the stove in the corner, where she poured two cups of strong coffee.
When she turned around with the steaming cups in her hands, she found that her husband had fallen asleep on the table, his head resting on his folded arms. She stood there for a moment, wondering what she was going to do. Her emotions were shattered in seeing George so vulnerable.
Dorothy then placed the coffee down on the table and decided that she needed fresh air to help her clear her mind. She kissed George on his head, then threw a soft blanket over his shoulders before going outside, into the garden.
10
The Peacekeepers belonged to the higher class of Sanctuary and their task was to keep law and order, acting as the policemen of Sanctuary. They strutted around dressed in bright red robes, indicating their status, which made many Sanctuarians refer to them as Red Cloaks. It was a tremendous honor to wear a red cloak and many a Sanctuarian dreamed of attaining it. The only weapons the red-cloaked Peacekeepers carried were batons fashioned from wood, but a few of the more prestigious ones also carried swords, which they used ruthlessly to bludgeon the enemies of the Guardian to death. It was their duty to keep the peace in the ongoing war with the Outsiders.
The particular Peacekeeper Storm spotted on the day they were cleaning the statues, was staring at him sternly and Storm nodded, accepting the silent warning at once and returning to his shoveling with increased speed.
In fact, he shoveled so fast that he sent piles of snow right onto the back of Mr. Walrus, who spun around on his heels, enraged. Storm wasn’t aware of this and continued digging himself into a deeper hole, oblivious to his teacher’s plight.
“STOP IT! STOP IT!” Mr. Walrus started shouting, whilst shaking his one fist in frustration and at the same time using his other hand to wave away the snow, which was still flying in streams towards him.
Storm looked up in surprise and when he understood what he had done, he ceased his shoveling immediately and mumbled an apology.
Mr. Walrus stood there for a moment, trembling with fury. Or is he perhaps trembling with cold? Storm silently asked himself. Bad thought, Storm!
After Mr. Walrus had shaken the snow from his clothes in anger, grumbling to himself, he grabbed his shovel and continued clearing one of the statues.
Storm suddenly had an even worse thought, which portrayed Mr. Walrus enlarging his nose for the purpose of using it as a shovel. That made him grin, but he did it behind his sleeve so that nobody could see him. He turned to resume his work and then noticed to his astonishment that he had dug right past the thick layer of snow and into the soil, creating a small, dark hole.
Just then, he heard one of the boys speaking excitedly behind him. “We heard the Old Man is planning on going into the tunnel!”
“What?” another boy replied. “No way.”
“Yeah, we heard it from–”
But then a familiar silky voice interjected: “We are going to check it out.”
Storm turned around and saw the sleek blond hair and arrogant face of Boy-130, whom he had nicknamed Jamie.
Jamie, the captain of the students, was busy glaring at each of the boys determinedly as they all nodded in agreement. The boys always followed Jamie without question and considered him the de facto leader of the group, which is why Storm had decided to create a special name just for him. That and the fact that Jamie annoyed him ceaselessly. Storm and Jamie had taken an instant dislike in each other from the very start, almost as if they were destined to be mortal enemies. Storm’s unyielding nature and his eccentricity had resulted in the fact that Jamie and the rest of the boys were continuously seeking opportunities to beat him up. The boys often chased Storm around when they were bored and he was in most cases only spared from a good thrashing because he was quite fast. Mr. Walrus often encouraged this, hoping once again that it would force Storm to either adapt or commit comunicide.
Storm now turned his attention away from Jamie, not wanting to draw any attention to himself, and his mind drifted to what the boys had been discussing – the tunnel in the Mountain.
Mr. Walrus had taught them that the Guardian had built the Mountain to protect Sanctuary from the outside world. It was an endless stretch of rock, covered in snow like everything else, that disappeared into the sky and stretched all the way around Sanctuary. Storm knew this, for him being Storm, he hadn’t trusted the words of his teacher and had decided to walk the entire distance himself one day. He felt bad about it afterwards, but his natural curiosity compelled him to do it and he later on had to lie to his brother as to his whereabouts, fabricating a story that he had gotten lost in a blizzard.
The people of Sanctuary loved the Mountain, enjoying the security it provided against the outside world. There was only one way to pass through the Mountain, the only way out of Sanctuary, and that was through a menacing tunnel in the center.
Just the thought of the tunnel sent a tingle down Storm’s back. The dark path extended through the Mountain and most of the Sanctuarians viewed it as frightening and paranormal, not daring to venture near it, let alone speak of it. Heavily armed guards were stationed in front of the tunnel on the other side of the Mountain, so as to diligently protect Sanctuary from a horde of Outsiders just waiting to gain entry into Sanctuary, for food or shelter. According to Mr. Walrus, it was a very time consuming task for the Peacekeepers to protect Sanctuary from the Outsiders.
The only people who had been brave or stupid enough to attempt walking through the tunnel, were those who were sick with Jacobites and they never returned.
Of all the mysterious things in Sanctuary, the Jacobites illness was probably one of the strangest.
Mr. Walrus had told his students that the illness came as a result of too much selfish thinking and that it eventually turned people crazy. The rest of the Sanctuarians did not like to talk about it and – but for Mr. Walrus’s statement – Storm did not know much more about it.
Those who contracted Jacobites, did irrational things, appearing as if they have lost the will to control themselves. Storm realized he needed to be extra careful, in his constant habit of doing selfish things, not to catch the disease.
Most assumed that those with Jacobites tried to made the journey through the tunnel to free themselves from the racking suffering the illness inflicted upon them. They reckoned that this was a manner to escape; a way to commit comunicide in essence.
No wonder the Old Man is planning on passing through, Storm now thought.
Although Mr. Walrus had already told them how destitute it was beyond Sanctuary, there were various rumors as to what one would find in the outside world. Storm had once overheard a miner yelling at one of his fellow servants that there were flying beasts outside, hideous and scaled, that breathed fire on people. Another man had once leaned over to Hadrian and Storm while they were eating, secretly telling them that on the other side of the mountain, crazy Outsider humans were running around, destroying everything and killing everyone, enjoying absolute anarchistic freedom. The man divulging this information had shivered at the mention of that last word, as if even mentioning freedom might infect them somehow.
“At least it can’t be as bad as what happened to Zion,” the man had added, to the nod of the two boys.
When Storm had inquired as to how the man knew all this, he’d looked taken back. “What are we implying, that we are lying?” he’d asked, while Hadrian had sighed heavily in the background.
“No, not at all, sir,” Storm had replied while he’d shaken his head in horror, cross with himself for making the stupid mistake. “We are just curious, that’s it.”
“Then stop being curious, it’s bad!” the man had said and with that, he’d walked off in a temper.
Hadrian had to beat Storm with a stick that night for his bad behavior and Storm felt terrible for weeks about his blunder. All this constant reprimanding, made Storm even more nervous in public situations.
Storm knew that the Old Man had to be suffering from quite a severe degree of Jacobites to be willing to venture through the tunnel. He had been spotted on numerous occasions, walking along the edges of the Mountain, banging his balled fists against the rock until it bled, all while muttering to himself and making wild movements with his head…
***
Storm had never seen someone pass through the tunnel and he had decided to follow Jamie and the other boys – to see how the event was going to play out – but he was already too late, as his mind was racing with vivid imaginative ideas.
Perhaps the Old Man will make it to the other side… Or he is going to be killed by the Peacekeepers… Or perhaps he will be scorched by a wild beast, breathing fire! Now that would be something to watch.
He suddenly realized that he was on his own, vaguely remembering that Mr. Walrus had dismissed them earlier, probably with the intent of fetching warmer clothes, since his was soaking wet.
The Peacekeeper who had first brought him to his senses was now standing just a few feet away, glaring at him suspiciously. As you may have noticed, these kinds of events happened frequently to Storm as he often lost track of time, consumed with his bad thoughts.
Nodding to the Peacekeeper, once again silently accepting the warning, Storm dropped his shovel and, completely forgetting about the hole he had just created, raised one leg up to take a step forward when he fell down face first onto the ground. In fact, he fell so hard that his face sank a few inches into the mud.
Instantly, his ability to discern any sound in Sanctuary disappeared – the mining in the distance, the laughter of the other boys (a few hundred yards to his left), the instructions being barked out by a Peacekeeper on the training grounds, and the howling of the wind.
Strangely, at that moment, with his inability to distinguish outside noises, his attention focussed completely on the raw earth he was staring at. He couldn’t help but admire the awesome power of the dark soil and his mind almost exploded with potential imaginary possibilities.
Plunging his hand into the soft earthy surface, Storm grabbed a fistful of dirt. While letting it fall to the ground the mix of clay and sand ran through his fingers, causing his imagination to go wild.
The images before him flickered from houses being built, to cheerful communities, to entire civilizations rising from the ground, characterized by massive stone structures. His vision was fixated on a picturesque and impeccably clean city, where there was no snow and where the streets were lined with large, multi-colored houses.
In the center of the city stood a statue depicting a great man. From his face, Storm could draw no other conclusion than that this man was happy, truly happy. In his mind’s eye, two words formed a peculiar phrase: THE REPUBLIC.
How strange, he thought, that so much potential should be hidden by the snow.
Then, all of a sudden, his vision was shattered when a hand clasped him from behind and he felt himself being lifted up by the collar of his coat. When he looked back, he was staring right into the face of the terrifying Blood Captain, the soldier leader and member of the Council. The Blood Captain, after his namesake, was in charge of the Peacekeepers and wore impressive red, leather armour that covered each part of his body, including his head. He was known to be almost mute, but that did not make him any less terrifying.
The Blood Captain gazed at him for a moment, the angry Peacekeeper still fuming behind him.
Storm hastily muttered an apology and the Blood Captain let him go.
This time Storm managed to find his footing instead of falling down again. He hurried away, whilst sneaking a peek over his shoulder. The Blood Captain and the peacekeeper continued to stare at him and he hastened his pace, determined to avoid another embarrassing scene.
With his thoughts returning to the Old Man, Storm fixed his course on the Mountain, eager to reach the tunnel entrance before he was too late to witness the event. He now set a brisk pace, his feet sinking into the snow for about ten minutes, until his ears started to pick up a familiar humming.
He was nearing the Enclave of the Selfless!
This was the home of a fanatic sect of monks, a place where they were supposed to commit themselves wholly to selfless ideals their entire lives. Some have said that these fanatics tear their brains out of their heads and somehow still manage to live, freed from the burden of individualism.
As Storm continued walking, the humming grew louder and then, all of a sudden, he recognized the home of the dangerous Sanctuarians appearing before him, behind a rock formation.
Then his curiosity got the better of him and he approached the building…
11
The four weeks after the war felt extremely long to Dorothy.
She had been so excited to see her husband return, but now that he had, she was experiencing complete emptiness. The man who had returned was not the George she remembered, and certainly not the man she had married. She was now ashamed to admit that she actually wished he hadn’t come back at all.
George had regained his weight within a week from his return to Zion and then he simply couldn’t stop eating. He soon became overweight and, with that, his overall appearance and demeanour started deteriorating. He became sloppy and filthy, not shaving his beard anymore, not washing his unkempt hair, and leaving his dirty socks and oily clothes on the floor when he undressed for bed.
With the obesity and untidiness also came the heavy drinking.
Before the war, George would only drink a cup of wine, sometimes two, on special occasions. Now, he was drinking hard liquor such as whiskey and rum by the gallons. He was drunk on most d
ays and he barely spent time with Dorothy anymore, since he would hang out at the local tavern, the Roasting Boar, every day from early in the afternoon until late at night.
They were living off their hard-earned savings because George wasn’t repairing roofs anymore like he had done prior to the war. “I need time to recover before I can resume work again,” he spat at Dorothy, three weeks after his return. “This war took a lot out of me, you know?”
Now he spent all of his money on alcohol.
At least his share of our money, Dorothy thought.
She was starting to worry, because she was almost sure he must be receiving money from somewhere to keep on drinking.
Dorothy failed to understand how the war could have depressed the men of Zion in such a profound way. If they had talked about it more, she could have perhaps fathomed it, but everybody (including George) kept their mouths shut, as if it was forbidden to reveal anything that had happened on the battlefield.
When she woke up in the mornings, her husband would stay in bed, without purpose, only to get up at noon for his drinking sessions in the Roasting Boar. She would walk away from the house as fast as possible, yet outside in the streets it was not much better. It was like the soldiers had brought an aura of despair back with them, something that was palpable everywhere.
Day by day, she noticed how the former troops were either staying in the pub or sitting on street corners, drinking themselves to a stupor in an attempt to forget about their sorrows.
***
One evening, while she was waiting for George to return from the pub, Dorothy realized that she couldn’t take it anymore. She was feeling neglected and alone, and she was longing for the old George. The George that she had met at their special place beside the lake. The George that loved her and called her butterfly. The George that was her husband…
She decided to walk down to the tavern to confront him.