Post by sheraton on Mar 15, 2008 14:14:01 GMT -6
I wrote this at GCB too. I tried not to make it too long...
A warm feeling. An Ephemeral feeling.
The girl smells the petals of the flowers silently. The Irises. She walks upon the sacred ground hearing whiffs of war-time marches. Battle cries and cries of pain. A memory of the past seems to echo in her ear.
A small girl of six returns home “These are very pretty flowers, daddy! See! They smell good!” she says, waving a disheveled bouquet.
A stifled laugh “Yes, they certainly do, Ellie.” A man, sitting on the porch replies in a delighted voice. “They’re called Irises, Ellie,” he continues. “They’re wonderful flowers.”
“Let’s plant some, daddy, we’ll do it together!”
Another laugh, “Oh…” the man replies, “I’m no good at bringing things to life Ellie. That’s more your mom’s forte.”
“Ellie…?” Langdon, her boyfriend brought her thoughts back to earth. “Are you alright? Really Alright?”
“O-oh…yeah.” The distraught girl replied, forcing a smile. “What was it you were saying?” she asked, realizing that he’d been talking to her. The sight of his worried expression made her feel better. She was glad she’d brought him along this time.
“Yeah.” Langdon continued. “I was asking you about your dad. You rarely talk about him around anybody. But I figured, since we’re here…”
Ellie bowed her head.
Langdon realized his mistake a little late. “D-don’t worry about it! You don’t have to say anything if you don’t want to…” She had been visiting her father’s grave every year since he died. It had been ten years. That’s all he knew.
“No, it’s alright you should know, I guess.” Ellie replied after a moment of thought. “My father, Sgt. Christopher Hemming, died here about ten years ago, near the end of the war…
“There were so many casualties here that they dumped all the bodies in a ditch.” She continued, “They simply sent notices to all the families whose husbands and sons weren’t returning home.” Her voice trembled a little, but she seemed to be composing herself. “Mother and I came out here, and planted a wooden cross over there,” she pointed, “near the trench.”
Langdon shook his head “It must have been hard for you. I’m sorry.”
“What are you sorry for?” Ellie asked, shifting her gaze to the flowers that she clung tightly to her chest. “Death isn’t anyone’s fault. Nor is war. ‘It’s just something humans tend to do.’ Isn’t that what you said…?”
Langdon sighed “That’s a round-a-bout way to make it no one’s fault.” He said, “But… I guess your right about that.”
The two kept walking in silence for a time, the only sound being the tell-tale signs of a thunderstorm culminating above their heads. After a few minutes they reached the site, only to find that someone was already there, a man in a long black trench coat. He had short, light brown hair, combed back, with only two small strands falling over his face. When they got close enough, they also noted his steely blue eyes. His face was drawn in a perpetual frown. His eyes were staring at the cross distantly.
Ellie and Langdon approached silently, creeping up behind him. They weren’t sure what to expect from the strange man. They stopped when the man kneeled down. After a moment of silence, he stood again, and turned slowly around to face the two teens. “I’m sorry. I will be taking my leave now.” With this statement, he began walking away.
Ellie called after him “Wait!” He stopped, but didn’t turn around. “You were in the war weren’t you? Did you know my father?” She asked him, almost begging. She ran a few paces after him, and Langdon fallowed, speaking words of caution to deaf ears.
The man’s voice was slow and emotionless; he looked over his shoulder, but did not turn to meet her “I suppose you could say we were…” his voice trailed off, as if he had lost the will to complete the sentence. The following word came after much deliberation, “…acquaintances.”
“Acquaintances?” Langdon’s voice was abrasive as he stood protectively next to Elie, eyes shining.
Obviously not broken of the childish dreams of valor, the man concluded.
“Who are you? What’s your name?” he asked ****ing an eyebrow.
The man shook his head slowly. “Arthur. Arthur Griffin.” He replied simply “formally General Arthur, Virginia 13th division Calvary under Brooke.” He gave his title during the war, giving a burning look into his past.
Ellie stared blankly at him for a minute. “You were…Confederate?” her voice was slight, but not angry. “My father was Federal. You must have him confused with someone else.”
The former soldier squinted hard and looked the other direction, scowling as if in pain. “No mistake.” His voice revealed none of the seemingly evident emotion he was feeling.
Ellie couldn’t put 2 and 2 together, “Then…”
Two men stand facing each other on a soon-to-be battlefield. One wears a simple jacket of grey; The other a stunning blue outfit. One reaches into his back pocket, pulls out a small container of tobacco. The man in blue, in turn, withdraws a newspaper fresh from the mail slot. “Captain Arthur Griffin,” the grey-clad man says.
“Chris Hemming,” the man in blue dress replies genially. They exchange items, and shake hands, returning to their posts to reap what they’ve sewn.
“War is a very fickle machine.” Mr. Griffin said cryptically. “We killed because we killed; we didn’t hate our enemy, nor did we have the desire to kill them. They are the enemy. That’s what we’re told,” The man’s voice had no emotion, but there seemed still to be a note of sadness on his breath, “There are those who killed for the sake thereof, though such creatures are less human than beast.”
The man’s sadistic outlook brought a cloud over the innocence of the teens. “Could you tell me…” Ellie’s voice was shivering “how he died?” she walked slowly over to the grave, kneeling down and setting the Irises lightly at the base of the cross. Her hands came together in prayer before she stood, expecting an answer from the stoic Griffin.
“You assume that I was there.” Griffin replied, harshly turning around. His eyes seemed to gravitate to the Irises the girl held. “I know nothing of the death of your father, nor of any other unfortunate dogs of the government.” The way he said it made a contradictory statement. He started to walk away again.
“Do you have a wife and kids!?” Langdon called, sensing the lie. This made the man stop dead in his tracks. “Wouldn’t you want them to know how you died, if you had died in the war?” his words spun around the stranger, in and out of his ears over and over.
The stranger took a deep breath, turned around, and looked Langdon in the eyes with his solid-brick gaze.
“Who the hell are you to tell me what I want?” the voice wasn’t angry, but the eyes were indeed. “Do you think me so disrespectful as to withhold information on such a topic?” he stood silently for a moment as if lamenting.
He ran a hand through his hair slowly. “’I have sinned against the lord.’” He quoted.
A volley of bullets rains upon the suspecting, but, unprepared soldiers. An ominous, odious mist shrouds the forest from being anything but hazardous. Paranoia and hysteria join moans of anguished and parched corpses to create an unmistakable taste and smell of W-A-R. Stepping through brambles of blue and grey, a young grey-backed soldier inspects his perimeter warily.
Through the think fog and mist of death a human-like figure makes itself visible between two parallel trees His skin is of a blue-ish tint. With accuracy devoid of compassion, a trigger is pulled; a gun fired. The sky sheds once more. The grey soldier moves silently to inspect his fallen prey.
The blue mass moves.
“Hello, Arthur.” The words call the grey soldier to his knees. “got anymore tobacco?” the voice asks hoarsely. “I could use a smoke.”
The grey soldier kneels motionless for a minute, unblinking, trying to sift though the thought of his mind. His is surprised to hear a voice; His own voice,
“Sure do. Want some?” his body, moving of it’s own accord, sets the blue soldier up against one of the parallel trees, facing the other one, and in doing so realizes were his shot had connected: the stomach; a fatal wound. He withdraws his container of tobacco, putting half of the remaining contents in the outstretched Yankee hand, and stuffing the rest into his own pipe.
Two lights shine in the darkness momentarily, and two strings of smoke rise, dissolving, intermingling, into the cold air. The grey-backed soldier, Arthur, gripping his musket tighter, offers the question, “Why haven’t you…tried to shoot me yet?” The “enemy” takes a long draw from his pipe.
The Blue suit’s mouth moves, shattered words make sentences. “What’s the point, friend? We’re both doomed to die anyway, whether physically or mentally. I figure it’s better to torture a person, by making them live with their actions.” This comment is fallowed by a stifled laugh, and smoke rings drifts up like clouds. “Nah…”the gruff voice starts again, after receiving a what-are-you-talking-about look from the boy. “I’d prefer to die without the fresh blood of a youngin’ on my conscience, Artie, do you mind if I call you Artie?”
Arthur shakes his head.
“Artie, have you ever smelled an Iris?” the question seemed strange. By the man’s serine face it was almost a romantic question.
Arthur replied in the negative.
“That’s too bad. It is…a wonderful smell.” The man coughed hard, a dirge of coming death, he thought.
“Well Artie, you got a girl back home you’re fighting for?” Christopher asks smiling wryly, seeming immune to the pain that is obviously coursing through his veins. Arthur looks at the ground with an embarrassed expression. The old man asks for letters. He lets the man read them reluctantly. Between the laughing of the man, the boy listens to his increasingly inaudible words of insight.
“I have a favor to ask of you, Artie.” He motions with his good arm to come closer, whispers in the young man’s ear, and slips a slip of paper in with the rest of the boy’s love notes. The boy protests but the man raises a hand “shh.” He grabs the barrel of his musket and holds it to his chest. “Pull the trigger, boy.” He says.
“Sin? What do you mean?” Langdon asked, awkwardly looking at the man. The man shook his head, reaching into his inner pocket. He stalked slowly over to the girl standing beside her father’s cross. He pulled her close to him, kissed her forehead, and slipped a piece of paper into her hand before she could protest.
Langdon scowled at the man as he came over to read the note. There was a full page of hand writing. The first line read: “I hope you didn’t mind a random guy giving you my final kiss good bye.” Ellie invited the stranger to help her plant the flowers. So, with the help of the three, the smell of the Irises filled the air forevermore.
The Iris
A warm feeling. An Ephemeral feeling.
The girl smells the petals of the flowers silently. The Irises. She walks upon the sacred ground hearing whiffs of war-time marches. Battle cries and cries of pain. A memory of the past seems to echo in her ear.
A small girl of six returns home “These are very pretty flowers, daddy! See! They smell good!” she says, waving a disheveled bouquet.
A stifled laugh “Yes, they certainly do, Ellie.” A man, sitting on the porch replies in a delighted voice. “They’re called Irises, Ellie,” he continues. “They’re wonderful flowers.”
“Let’s plant some, daddy, we’ll do it together!”
Another laugh, “Oh…” the man replies, “I’m no good at bringing things to life Ellie. That’s more your mom’s forte.”
“Ellie…?” Langdon, her boyfriend brought her thoughts back to earth. “Are you alright? Really Alright?”
“O-oh…yeah.” The distraught girl replied, forcing a smile. “What was it you were saying?” she asked, realizing that he’d been talking to her. The sight of his worried expression made her feel better. She was glad she’d brought him along this time.
“Yeah.” Langdon continued. “I was asking you about your dad. You rarely talk about him around anybody. But I figured, since we’re here…”
Ellie bowed her head.
Langdon realized his mistake a little late. “D-don’t worry about it! You don’t have to say anything if you don’t want to…” She had been visiting her father’s grave every year since he died. It had been ten years. That’s all he knew.
“No, it’s alright you should know, I guess.” Ellie replied after a moment of thought. “My father, Sgt. Christopher Hemming, died here about ten years ago, near the end of the war…
“There were so many casualties here that they dumped all the bodies in a ditch.” She continued, “They simply sent notices to all the families whose husbands and sons weren’t returning home.” Her voice trembled a little, but she seemed to be composing herself. “Mother and I came out here, and planted a wooden cross over there,” she pointed, “near the trench.”
Langdon shook his head “It must have been hard for you. I’m sorry.”
“What are you sorry for?” Ellie asked, shifting her gaze to the flowers that she clung tightly to her chest. “Death isn’t anyone’s fault. Nor is war. ‘It’s just something humans tend to do.’ Isn’t that what you said…?”
Langdon sighed “That’s a round-a-bout way to make it no one’s fault.” He said, “But… I guess your right about that.”
The two kept walking in silence for a time, the only sound being the tell-tale signs of a thunderstorm culminating above their heads. After a few minutes they reached the site, only to find that someone was already there, a man in a long black trench coat. He had short, light brown hair, combed back, with only two small strands falling over his face. When they got close enough, they also noted his steely blue eyes. His face was drawn in a perpetual frown. His eyes were staring at the cross distantly.
Ellie and Langdon approached silently, creeping up behind him. They weren’t sure what to expect from the strange man. They stopped when the man kneeled down. After a moment of silence, he stood again, and turned slowly around to face the two teens. “I’m sorry. I will be taking my leave now.” With this statement, he began walking away.
Ellie called after him “Wait!” He stopped, but didn’t turn around. “You were in the war weren’t you? Did you know my father?” She asked him, almost begging. She ran a few paces after him, and Langdon fallowed, speaking words of caution to deaf ears.
The man’s voice was slow and emotionless; he looked over his shoulder, but did not turn to meet her “I suppose you could say we were…” his voice trailed off, as if he had lost the will to complete the sentence. The following word came after much deliberation, “…acquaintances.”
“Acquaintances?” Langdon’s voice was abrasive as he stood protectively next to Elie, eyes shining.
Obviously not broken of the childish dreams of valor, the man concluded.
“Who are you? What’s your name?” he asked ****ing an eyebrow.
The man shook his head slowly. “Arthur. Arthur Griffin.” He replied simply “formally General Arthur, Virginia 13th division Calvary under Brooke.” He gave his title during the war, giving a burning look into his past.
Ellie stared blankly at him for a minute. “You were…Confederate?” her voice was slight, but not angry. “My father was Federal. You must have him confused with someone else.”
The former soldier squinted hard and looked the other direction, scowling as if in pain. “No mistake.” His voice revealed none of the seemingly evident emotion he was feeling.
Ellie couldn’t put 2 and 2 together, “Then…”
Two men stand facing each other on a soon-to-be battlefield. One wears a simple jacket of grey; The other a stunning blue outfit. One reaches into his back pocket, pulls out a small container of tobacco. The man in blue, in turn, withdraws a newspaper fresh from the mail slot. “Captain Arthur Griffin,” the grey-clad man says.
“Chris Hemming,” the man in blue dress replies genially. They exchange items, and shake hands, returning to their posts to reap what they’ve sewn.
“War is a very fickle machine.” Mr. Griffin said cryptically. “We killed because we killed; we didn’t hate our enemy, nor did we have the desire to kill them. They are the enemy. That’s what we’re told,” The man’s voice had no emotion, but there seemed still to be a note of sadness on his breath, “There are those who killed for the sake thereof, though such creatures are less human than beast.”
The man’s sadistic outlook brought a cloud over the innocence of the teens. “Could you tell me…” Ellie’s voice was shivering “how he died?” she walked slowly over to the grave, kneeling down and setting the Irises lightly at the base of the cross. Her hands came together in prayer before she stood, expecting an answer from the stoic Griffin.
“You assume that I was there.” Griffin replied, harshly turning around. His eyes seemed to gravitate to the Irises the girl held. “I know nothing of the death of your father, nor of any other unfortunate dogs of the government.” The way he said it made a contradictory statement. He started to walk away again.
“Do you have a wife and kids!?” Langdon called, sensing the lie. This made the man stop dead in his tracks. “Wouldn’t you want them to know how you died, if you had died in the war?” his words spun around the stranger, in and out of his ears over and over.
The stranger took a deep breath, turned around, and looked Langdon in the eyes with his solid-brick gaze.
“Who the hell are you to tell me what I want?” the voice wasn’t angry, but the eyes were indeed. “Do you think me so disrespectful as to withhold information on such a topic?” he stood silently for a moment as if lamenting.
He ran a hand through his hair slowly. “’I have sinned against the lord.’” He quoted.
A volley of bullets rains upon the suspecting, but, unprepared soldiers. An ominous, odious mist shrouds the forest from being anything but hazardous. Paranoia and hysteria join moans of anguished and parched corpses to create an unmistakable taste and smell of W-A-R. Stepping through brambles of blue and grey, a young grey-backed soldier inspects his perimeter warily.
Through the think fog and mist of death a human-like figure makes itself visible between two parallel trees His skin is of a blue-ish tint. With accuracy devoid of compassion, a trigger is pulled; a gun fired. The sky sheds once more. The grey soldier moves silently to inspect his fallen prey.
The blue mass moves.
“Hello, Arthur.” The words call the grey soldier to his knees. “got anymore tobacco?” the voice asks hoarsely. “I could use a smoke.”
The grey soldier kneels motionless for a minute, unblinking, trying to sift though the thought of his mind. His is surprised to hear a voice; His own voice,
“Sure do. Want some?” his body, moving of it’s own accord, sets the blue soldier up against one of the parallel trees, facing the other one, and in doing so realizes were his shot had connected: the stomach; a fatal wound. He withdraws his container of tobacco, putting half of the remaining contents in the outstretched Yankee hand, and stuffing the rest into his own pipe.
Two lights shine in the darkness momentarily, and two strings of smoke rise, dissolving, intermingling, into the cold air. The grey-backed soldier, Arthur, gripping his musket tighter, offers the question, “Why haven’t you…tried to shoot me yet?” The “enemy” takes a long draw from his pipe.
The Blue suit’s mouth moves, shattered words make sentences. “What’s the point, friend? We’re both doomed to die anyway, whether physically or mentally. I figure it’s better to torture a person, by making them live with their actions.” This comment is fallowed by a stifled laugh, and smoke rings drifts up like clouds. “Nah…”the gruff voice starts again, after receiving a what-are-you-talking-about look from the boy. “I’d prefer to die without the fresh blood of a youngin’ on my conscience, Artie, do you mind if I call you Artie?”
Arthur shakes his head.
“Artie, have you ever smelled an Iris?” the question seemed strange. By the man’s serine face it was almost a romantic question.
Arthur replied in the negative.
“That’s too bad. It is…a wonderful smell.” The man coughed hard, a dirge of coming death, he thought.
“Well Artie, you got a girl back home you’re fighting for?” Christopher asks smiling wryly, seeming immune to the pain that is obviously coursing through his veins. Arthur looks at the ground with an embarrassed expression. The old man asks for letters. He lets the man read them reluctantly. Between the laughing of the man, the boy listens to his increasingly inaudible words of insight.
“I have a favor to ask of you, Artie.” He motions with his good arm to come closer, whispers in the young man’s ear, and slips a slip of paper in with the rest of the boy’s love notes. The boy protests but the man raises a hand “shh.” He grabs the barrel of his musket and holds it to his chest. “Pull the trigger, boy.” He says.
“Sin? What do you mean?” Langdon asked, awkwardly looking at the man. The man shook his head, reaching into his inner pocket. He stalked slowly over to the girl standing beside her father’s cross. He pulled her close to him, kissed her forehead, and slipped a piece of paper into her hand before she could protest.
Langdon scowled at the man as he came over to read the note. There was a full page of hand writing. The first line read: “I hope you didn’t mind a random guy giving you my final kiss good bye.” Ellie invited the stranger to help her plant the flowers. So, with the help of the three, the smell of the Irises filled the air forevermore.