The Soldier

The first thing he recalls is the silence. It's not the silence after gunfire, with smoke lingering and ears ringing from cannon blasts. Nor is it the quiet of a winter camp, where men huddle and dream of bread, mothers, and warm rooms. This silence is deeper and older. It extends between the trees, gathers in the hollows of the Blue Ridge, and softly settles like dust over everything abandoned. He remains where he fell, or at least, that’s how it seems to him.

He recalls the charge, though the memory feels faint, like worn fabric. Boots hitting the ground. A voice giving commands. A name—possibly his—slipping away before he can hold on. Then a sharp crack splitting the air, and a sudden feeling of being forgotten.

Left behind.

He has been there ever since.

The seasons transition around him silently at first, then with increasing heaviness. Leaves drift down and pile up in deep, rusty layers. Snow roots itself in the land's creases, lingering for weeks and softening the world’s harshness. Spring arrives in a burst of lush greenery, with vines and wildflowers weaving through the undergrowth. Summer comes alive with the buzz of insects and the sweltering heat.

He sees all of it.

No one sees him.

At first, he tries to move.

He struggles internally, desperately trying to make his limbs move. He attempts to lift his head, raise a hand, or shout, but nothing responds. His body—if it still is his—stays in place, half-embedded in the earth and leaf litter, as if the mountain has claimed him.

He calls out regardless. “Here!” he shouts, or at least thinks he shouts, whenever he hears footsteps.

They come often in those early days—soldiers, stragglers, men limping through the woods with bandaged arms and hollow eyes. Once, a pair of them stops so close he can see the mud cracking on their boots.

“Think the fighting’s done?” one asks.

“Don’t know,” the other says. “Feels like it ought to be.”

“I’m not going back,” the first mutters. “Ain’t nothing left worth dying for.”

The soldier on the ground—this unseen, unheard thing—tries to answer. He wants to say, Take me with you. He wants to say, Don’t leave me here.

But the men walk on.

He is not part of their world.

Days stretch into weeks. Weeks into months. The war ends, though he does not witness its final moments. He hears it instead, in fragments carried by passing voices.

“…Lee surrendered…”

“…over at Appomattox…”

“…God help us, it’s finished…”

Finished.

The word echoes in him.

But nothing finishes for him.

Time starts to lose its hold on significance. He can't sleep, and the only way to gauge the hours is by the changing light filtering through the trees. Hunger never arrives. Thirst doesn't affect him. Pain also diminishes—not due to healing, but because it no longer holds importance.

What replaces it is something else.

Loneliness.

It starts as a dull ache, a hollow area where something once was. Over time, it expands, growing wider and deeper, until it consumes everything.

He tries to remember his name.

He cannot.

He tries to remember his home.

There is a flicker—fields, perhaps, or a small house—but it slips away before it can settle.

All he has is the mountain.

Years pass.

He knows this not by counting, but by listening.

A boy comes through the woods one afternoon, long after the war has become something spoken of rather than lived. The boy carries a stick, swinging it through the air as though it were a sword.

“Charge!” the boy cries, laughing.

He runs past the place where the soldier lies.

The soldier watches him go, something stirring faintly in his chest. The boy’s voice echoes, bright and alive, so unlike the weary murmurs of the men who came before.

For a moment—just a moment—the soldier feels as though he might follow.

He does not.

The boy vanishes into the trees.

Later, others come. Farmers, hunters, wanderers. They speak of rebuilding, of lost sons, of new beginnings.

“…we’re planting again this spring…”

“…the railroad’s coming through—can you imagine that? Iron tracks all the way across…”

“…times are changing…”

The soldier listens.

It is all he can do.

The forest evolves alongside them. Paths expand and then disappear. Trees are felled and new ones sprout in their stead. The land is gradually carved and reshaped by unseen hands, though he can hear their voices.

Time stretches.

The loneliness deepens.

He begins to understand that he is not simply unseen.

He is not there.

Not in the way the others are.

It is a slow realization, one that creeps in like cold through thin cloth. At first, he resists it. He insists to himself that he is still a man, still a soldier left behind. That if he could just move, just speak loud enough, someone would hear him.

But no one ever does.

Not once.

He observes a deer cross over him without hesitation. Its hooves press into the ground where his chest might be, yet it continues without pause. Birds settle near him, pecking at seeds and insects, completely unafraid.

He is nothing to them.

Not even an obstacle.

The world continues without him.

Decades pass.

He hears new words, new concerns.

“…the war in Europe…”

“…machines now, faster than anything you’ve ever seen…”

“…cars, they call them…”

Voices change. Accents shift. Clothing transforms from rough homespun to something finer, stranger. He does not understand most of it, but he listens all the same.

It is all that anchors him.

Without the voices, he fears he would drift entirely, dissolve into the silence that first claimed him.

Once, a group of children enters the woods, their laughter echoing among the trees. They are different from the boy he saw long ago—louder, perhaps, or simply unfamiliar in ways he cannot name.

One of them carries a small object in his hand.

The soldier notices it without knowing why.

It is shaped like a man.

Tiny. Rigid. Painted in dull colors.

The boy sets it down on a rock.

“This is you,” he says to one of his friends. “You’re the soldier.”

The others laugh.

They make up a battle, their voices rising and falling in mock conflict. The little figure stands at the center of it all, unmoving, as the children argue over victories and defeats.

The soldier watches.

Something stirs again—that same faint pull he felt when the first boy ran past him so many years ago.

Recognition.

But of what?

The children leave, eventually, their game abandoned. The small figure is forgotten on the rock.

Rain falls that night, washing the dirt from its surface. Wind knocks it loose, sending it tumbling down the slope.

It lands not far from where the soldier lies.

He cannot turn his head.

Yet somehow, he knows it is there.

Days pass.

The figure remains.

The soldier feels… drawn to it.

Not in a physical sense—he still cannot move—but in a way he cannot describe. As though something within him is tethered to it.

The loneliness shifts.

It does not lessen, but it changes shape, becoming sharper, more focused.

He begins to understand.

He is not the soldier he remembers.

Not entirely.

The realization comes slowly, painfully, as though each piece must be pried loose from whatever remains of his identity.

The memories he holds—the charge, the voices, the war—are not his own.

They are borrowed.

Imprinted.

Given.

He is the echo of a story, not the story itself.

The small figure lying in the dirt nearby is his body.

A dimestore toy.

Left behind.

The boy who owned him is long gone.

The war he remembers is one he never fought.

And yet, he has lived it.

He has carried it for years beyond counting, holding onto it as the only thing that made him real.

The mountain does not care.

Time does not care.

He lies there, caught between existence and absence, an idea given form and then forgotten.

The loneliness becomes something else.

Not just absence, but longing—for a purpose, for recognition, for anything that might anchor him again.

Years pass.

More voices come and go.

“…the Depression…”

“…another war, can you believe it…”

“…we landed on the moon…”

The words mean less and less to him. Without the illusion of his own past to cling to, they drift past like wind through empty branches.

He begins to fade.

Not physically—he has no true body to decay—but in some deeper way. His thoughts grow quieter, less distinct—the edges of his awareness blur.

The silence returns.

It is not the same as the first silence he knew.

This one is heavier.

Final.

He wonders, dimly, if this is what it means to end.

Then, one day, something changes.

Footsteps.

They are not unusual—he has heard countless footsteps over the years—but there is something different about these.

They slow as they approach.

They come to a halt precisely where he is lying.

The soldier—what remains of him—feels a flicker of attention, like a match struck in the dark.

A voice speaks.

“Well now,” it says. “What have we got here?” It is an older voice, worn but steady.

For the first time in longer than he can comprehend, the soldier feels something close to hope.

The man crouches.

The soldier cannot see him directly, but he senses the movement, the shift in presence.

There is a pause.

Then the man chuckles softly. “Ain’t you a sight,” he says. Fingers brush against the earth. The small figure is lifted. And in that instant, everything changes.

The soldier feels it—a sudden, jarring connection, as though something long severed has been restored. His awareness sharpens, pulling tight around the point where the man’s hand holds the toy.

He is there.

He is in something.

Not the mountain. Not the silence.

The toy.

The man turns it over, examining it. “Civil War, I reckon,” he murmurs. “Poor little fella’s seen better days.” The man smiles—he can feel it, somehow. “I reckon you’ve got quite a story to tell.”

After all this time, the soldier finally appears. The loneliness begins to break, even if only slightly. For so long, he has only listened, yearning to be acknowledged and understood. While speaking is still out of reach, he can at least be seen.

The man stands, slipping the toy gently into his pocket.

“Come on,” he says. “No sense leaving you out here any longer.” As they move away from the place where he has lain for so many years, the soldier feels something he has not felt since before the silence.

Motion.

Not his own, but enough.

The mountain recedes behind him.

The forest, the voices, the endless passage of time—they all begin to blur.

For the first time, he is part of the world again.

Not a man.

Not a soldier.

But something that can be seen.

Something that can be heard.

Something that is no longer alone.

As the older man leads him down the winding path, the soldier notices that what once seemed like endless, unbearable emptiness of time now feels entirely different.

Not meaningless.

But open.

Waiting.

For whatever comes next.