“Maybe we can drink the water and rinse our faces at least,” she says, stepping through the missing gate onto the patch of flat field.
“Ladies first,”
“Want some bread?” he asks.
“Bread from where?”
“Back there, where else? always take a piece of bread, and cheese if you can.”
“You have cheese?”
“It’s hard cheese, harder than the bread is stale.”
“It is, white lies help if only you believe them?” she says.
“Only to fill your stomach, and to ease the guilt of doing it,” he answers. Sitting for a while in a scene of still serenity on the green bed having their hobo’s picnic. He kneels down, cupping water in his hands that drips through his fingers and splashing it onto his face.
“Cider, Cider!” she says in disbelief.
“What?” he asks and she nods her head to the pond, to the trail of crystal clear water dripping from his hands standing collectively as a pillar suspending the pattern of the splash across his face. Each drip and drop is staying in the air after leaving his skin, and there's a hole left in the surface of the still pond carved out by his cupped hands as though dug from something solid.
“That's amazing,” she says, admiring it as he looks on, perplexed by the fluid suspended in place. She runs over and digs a hole in the pond, admonishing what’s cupped in her hands and the tiny crater they leave. Ordinary water she thinks, then throws it skyward, leaving a stroke of glistening clear fluid formed by the tips of her fingers suspended in the air a feet from her face. They keep running their hands through the water, laughing, splashing it up and walking through it to see where it stays. Spraying it up and swatting it into different shapes and patterns while suspended in the air. Anna’s admires the ruptures and ripples in stasis spreading across the otherwise undisturbed pond’s sleek surface.
The two then lay their backs to the bushy green bed. She starts to relate the many pockmarks and craters they left in the pond with the massive holes bored through the mass of ivory clouds above. Then she slips behind the shade of her eyelids, though unable to actually sleep in the sunless daylight.
CHAPTER TEN
Vanitas
Bursts of sound are reaching from far and away to lightly tap her eardrums with increasing frequency. Then a noise begins erupting, sounding like a full brigade of rifles at a firing range.
“Do you hear that?” She asks jumping to sit up from her sleepless rest.
“Yeah I hear it, it's coming from over that hill. Definitely gunfire, sounds like some heavy stuff.”
“It could be fireworks.”
“Maybe,” he says, though he's sure isn’t, “either way it's something, so there must be people, or something people like em. Hopefully they have a way out of here.”
“Or gas,” she says.
“Right, tanks need gas.”
“Tanks?” she asks muted by what sounds like a volley of artillery landing on the popping of rifles, “or fireworks.”
“You got that pistol right?” he asks.
“Yeah.”
“Good. Let's go see the fireworks,” he smiles. They creep around the base of a twenty foot hill. Peeking with guns first round its bend while listening intently to the growing sounds of a battlefield, or fireworks.
“A wall of trees,” he says resting his weapon at his side when coming to the other side of the twelve foot hill.
“Look! in the air,” she points to dozens of clouds of bursted black artillery rounds hanging like splashes of smoke in the air. The two tiptoe toward the thick row of interwoven willow branches, whose leaves patch together into a solid wall of variegated greens. The two are careful of each blade of grass they touch as they inch their way closer, listening to shouting muffled by the popping of muzzles. None of the bullets or bombs are passing anywhere near them, easing their nerves with their ears listening intently until close enough to tell the difference between the voices valiant and the dying. He finds a hole in the brush and peeks through to see a pastel blue skied battlefield of trench warfare on the other side. The tops of hundreds of soldier's helmets are popping up and down from massive snaking scars they've dug to trade potshots from.
“There's a lot of people,” he says.
“Let me see.”
“Wait a minute.”
“I want to see. Move,” she says pushing him out of the way “stop pushing me,” he says. She doesn’t and moves him from his sight of the hole. She sees a sea of barb wire and no man’s land for miles around two large trenches, each heavily fortified with intricately detailed tunneling and holes as though dug by big army ants. Powdery multicolored vapors of chemical gases and bombs are breaking in the air, bursting outward and lingering in shape longer than they should.
“You see the tanks,” he says.
“Yea there really old,” she says.
“Tanks need gas, maybe they have some gas.”
“That's crazy.”
“They'll probably shoot us if they see us, or kill us if they catch us. What we need must be somewhere over there,” he says pointing to the tanks.
“I don't know, I think we'll die,” she says.
“What else can we do? stay here forever?” he says as he rubs her head like condescending to a child. She huffs and walks in nervous circles, muttering to herself in panic.
“This is madness,” she finally says.
“Relax” he says, “have you ever seen a war movie?”
“Yes,”
“Then you'll be fine,”
“I’m really starting to wonder which of us is naive?”
“You, but remember when they duck walked through the fields? like this,” he says as he squats and shifts awkwardly from foot to foot waving his gun in the air. She laughs, then imitates him, and they get carried away laughing and quacking while duck walking in circles.
“Hello.”
“Hello,” she says back, thinking it’s Cider playing around. She jumps to her feet at the sight of an ill looking man’s gaunt eyes looking vacantly back at her. Waving his small hand in a clean white glove warmly as if welcoming them. He's dressed in a yellowed white shirt emblazoned with the double helix of medic's cross, and a wide white tie. His olive green knickers reach to his boots that reach to his knee. The man’s hair is graying from ash blonde and likely combed back under his disk like helmet that's also bearing a medic’s double helix and cross. Though having a thousand yard, horrific hollow stare, he has a welcoming smile that's not without its warmth. He says nothing, only taking a flask from his satchel and a tin mug and holding one in each hand. He has a multitude of randomly sized pockets placed all around his pants, each filled with medicines, elixirs and all sorts of other small things. He pours an oily fluid from the flask into the mug then sips from it.
“Enjoying the fireworks?” the man, appearing as a medic asks with friendliness.
“I guess. Is that coffee by any chance?” she asks.
“Sure is,” the man says.
“Are you gonna?” Cider asks.
“Capture you? kill you? certainly not. I haven't had company in…well forever,” the medic says.
“Isn't there a war going on there? are you in the military?” he asks.
“Yes and yes, but that's the show, I'm not part of the show,” the man answers.
“What do you mean by the show? this is real, isn't it,” Anna asks.
“As much as it could be I suppose, to me anyway. But it's real in the sense that you could die here and maybe have to stay.”
“So then yes,” she says.
“Yes. Who are you anyway?” the man asks.
“Who are you?” Cider asks insistently, now standing and pointing his gun to the man's chest.
“Going to be rude intruders?” the man asks in a salty tone.
“I'm Anna,” she says, nodding a disarming look to Cider.
“And I'm Cider”, he says taking Anna's cue of friendliness instead of fighting, and shaking th
e man’s hand.
“And my name is Mickey. It's nice to meet you,” Mickey says shaking hands with Cider, for a minute too long.
“And you,” she replies.
“How'd you guys get here anyway?” Mickey asks.
“We drove.”
“He drove,” she says.
“Drove? in a car? from where?” Mickey asks. “I’ve never found a way out, no matter how many days I’ve tried.”
“Around here somewhere, somewhere back there. We had to leave it a while back, we ran out of gas.”
“Yeah, right when it was my turn to drive,” she says rolling her stare to Cider.
“Let it go,” Cider says.
“I did,” she answers.
“You need gas? for your auto?” Mickey asks.
“Yes, we,” he says.
“We do,” she says over him.
“I can get some gas for you, easily,” he says “It's back at the base. I'll bring you there,” The medic says “It's not too dangerous for you and me, us. I know the way?” he says to soothe their doubts of following him. Something about Mickey’s soft way of speaking and tall domineering demeanor casts a chill to his proposition and his presence, to her at least.
“Don't worry about all that,” Mickey says pointing over the trees, “this is the show.”
“What do you mean by that?” she asks.
“This is the same battle they fight every day, it is every day. From mortar to rifle down to the very smallest piece of shrapnel and blade of grass,” he says, looking to the imprints left by their feet. “Troop movements and the actions of brave men and cowards. The nerve curdling screams of dying men, with torn limbs or fatal wounds, shrapnel slashing their arteries. All of it is forever recurring. It's never ending, the pestilence of man's wrath onto one another for some ideal none of the soldier’s even hold,” he sips his coffee.
“Why is it the same?” Cider asks.
“I don't know?” Mickey answers.
“Hey, how do you know it is the same every day, if every day is the same then how come you know it’s different?” she asks.
“I too am living the same day every day, though I am the only one who knows it. That remembers today is every day from sun up to sun up of the next day. The rest are like goldfish, having the same tears, the same expressions, valiant efforts and cowardice. It's a wonderful thing to be able to see, to contemplate, but it’s been an eternity too long.”
“That does…sound nice,” she says awkwardly, trying to sound not terrified of walking through an active battlefield.
“It can be, depends on your vantage and the time. Care for a drink, it's strong. The clean stuff of from the other side,” the medic offers, though Anna’s still unsure, suspicious of him, and that he’s medic, familiar with medicines, good and bad.
“Sure,” Cider accepts and spews it out a second later “Why is it oily and sour?” he shouts.
“That’s the good stuff. Good Joe is supposed to be, friend,” Mickey says smiling.
“It isn't,” he coughs out, wiping his mouth.
“None for me thanks,” she says, “say, why are they at war anyway?”
“A smoke before we go?” Mickey asks.
“Sure,” and Cider takes a rolled smoke from the medic.
“No thanks,” she declines.
“Anyway, I now where every bullet hits and bomb lands, so just follow me and heed my instructions, and we'll all walk through the battlefield easily as walking on water.”
“No thank you, that sounds insane,” she says.
“Which part?” Cider asks.
“All of it,” she quickly answers.
“Oh, no worries dovie. I've done this countless times.”
“How do we know you’re not trying to trick us?” he asks sizing Mickey up, who seems to him like a long necked goose of a person.
“What reason do I have to do that? I could've killed the both of you when I had the drop on you, but I didn't, did I?” Mickey says.
“True, you didn’t,” Cider nods approvingly to Anna.
“It's the same thing every day. I’m just happy to see something new, let alone new company, new people to talk to. I don't even have any weapons, see,” he says, taking his pockets out to show them, “but a medical knife, you can trust me. I'll lead you safely through the fray unharmed. I swear it,” he says wearing an excited expression.
“Alright,” she agrees, with her tongue in her throat. Unnerved by this man, like she’s seeing a shadowless ghost standing in front of her.
“Okay. I need to get each of you a uniform. I'll be back in a few minutes,” Mickey says before he bolts through the brush, uncaring of the firefight unfolding all around him. Stepping gracefully around the mortars and bullets without even breaking stride, then vanishing over a dirt mound and making his way to munitions stacked at the mouth of a trench.
“He seems alright,” he whispers.
“He's nice it's just a little odd here,” she says ”you remember the water don't you?”
“Of course I remember the water,” he says looking at his bone dry hands.
“Why is he the only one who knows every day is the same? why isn't he like that too?” she says hushed but harshly.
“I dunno, sometimes strange things happen,” Cider says, “like people fleeing from their own atomizing Alto.”
“That’s diff…,” she whispers and stalls.
“I've returned with the proper clothes,” The medic says standing perfectly still, and grinning. The two of them are wondering if he'd heard them or not.
“I didn't see you come back,” she says suspecting eye.
“I know every way from everywhere here. Would you like some chocolates?” Mickey asks her seeking to soothe her apparent apprehension in his presence.
“If you have some I don't see why not,” she says.
“I do,” he says, pulling out a large bar of cream lightened cocoa, breaking a stone sized piece for her and handing it out cautiously, like he's feeding a stray cat.
“It's a bit dense, but it does taste very good,” she says smiling. It tastes like nothing, not even having the texture of chocolate. It’s brittle and breaking, not melting over her tongue.
“Thank you very much,” she adds.
“Yes, it’s scrumptious if I say so myself,” Mickey says. The tall white clothed military medic leads them along a barely beaten trail. Through stubby brush and high crosshatching leaves edging shallow freshwater marshes with lily pads, but no frogs or fish or anything living.
“Yeah, I've done everything here, everything you can think of. Bedded women on both sides, dressed as the enemy, moved through the ranks meeting each individual person, everything you can think of many times over. Getting to know them closely as friends know each other, though the next day they recall nothing of what we spoke. I know where the whole battlefield lives, what they live for, their secrets and their loves, every expression that’s ever crossed their faces, I know well. Bit by bit each day adding to my memories of them, forming their personalities one layer at a time.”
“That's interesting,” she says.
“Playing the field,” Cider says.
“In a way you can see it like that,” Mickey says. “Now follow my exact step and orders precisely. Timing is important, one false step could be fatal so be aware and follow closely, and I'll keep you from...oblivion,” the Medic says like a camp counselor. A bullet breaks the bark of a tree right beside them, then ten trees are shattered from the forest by the force a bomb thirty yards to their left.
“You knew about that?” she asks.
“Yeah, if it's not close enough to hit you then I wouldn’t worry about it,” the medic says. The three tiptoe through the gunfire, and run through open fields, crawl under barb wire, through the trenches, and past shooting soldiers. Diving in and out of fox holes and sprinting from the whistle of falling artillery. Doing the Limbo under an machine gun nest, at one point being pinned under fire by an overwhelming offensive wi
th more artillery bursts splashing in the air then she can count. The three lay panting for breath behind sandbags in the fetal position. Anna's fear pale face almost matches the goose necked Medic's bluish skin, who's sitting upright carelessly sipping his coffee.
“Hey! get up, now. Trust me, we're safe wherever we are,” Mickey says. He's been making a game of leading them through the war zone, taking them near machine gun nests to test and tease them. Fascinated with the new people he's met, and finding it suspenseful to lead them into near death to watch their instinctual reactions, that he himself no longer feels. Intentionally bringing their heads within inches of whizzing bullets to see them jump and wince in surprise. Once a pineapple hand grenade’s shrapnel tears through her pants, nearly bringing her to tears and getting dirt in all of their eyes. For two hours they sit comfortably with gas masks on their faces, locked out of a bunker while playing war with a deck of cards and an enemy soldier. Along the way he makes a point of taking them to the scenic spots he's collected through his days, making a point of pointing out how good of a landscape painting each would be. Explaining the symbolism he believes each scene portrays. The best scenes of the battlefield, and at what time of day and vantage to best see them from before reaching a yellowish clay path, beaten only by Mickey’s daily walk home. A pale sickly tree growing some kind of rotten fruits curves over the house without casting a shadow.
“Did you like it,” Mickey asks.
“You know it wasn't bad,” Cider says.
“We almost died dozens of times,” she says sweating through her clothes, looking wired and thoroughly traumatized.
“You had not. I was careful to take you along the safest paths, to thrill you but not kill you, and you've seen some of the best views to see,” Mickey says.
“Thanks, that was very nice of you,” she says.
“You're both very welcome, I do hope you feel that way.”
“We do, thanks,” she says.
“Yeah that was fun,” Cider says sincerely.
“Good we're almost there,” Mickey assures them.
“Have you tried to die here,” she asks.
“Yes, thousands of times, at least. I just wake up the next day and it's today again, and again. It’s been very lonely at times, that's why it's so refreshing,” the medic sighs relief, “to have new company, new friends to have.”
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