Green eyes

Frozen, I muster Mason’s face, its lower half hidden behind a thick layer of lead, where his helmet intended to protect his dear life. Only that this helmet has just terribly failed.

„Darren, what happened?“, the others‘ voices call, but my gaze stays locked on Maosn’s beauty, now gone to eternity. Still I remember the day we first shook hands in combat, one of the last lessons of our ultimate year. Me being a small lonely boy never ready to dive into a fight, but there he was: Pretty Mason, offering me his hand as if asking me to dance not to fight between rows of cheering spectators. And so I agreed; never intended to win and never did. Too hard it was to concentrate on getting him down while ignoring his damn beautiful eyes that captured me totally. Though I’m sure they were grey and never as bright a green as they are now. My impulse to squeeze his eyes shut, to shove his thin eyelids over the green stare is scaring me. Has he not to be able to see the world, the pretty landmarks having passed now that we are settled on the aftermath of this freaking battlefield, which never ver seems to encounter an ending. Far away from the corpses we left behind, but only ever physically. And my spirits, Mason‘s gone. Just there. Forever. Although, I never thought about coming out here alive, this extinguishes my very last bit of hope inside my wicked mind. War was never intended for me, I thought. But then, it became intended for everyone. With the Red Territory growing as a thread, everyone became part of the game for land and blood. And as soon as I stepped into my army boots, all the colour seemed to have vanished from my imagination, once filled with rainbow pictures of wat beauty was left in our world. And now I’m ending over my only ever love. But seems like I’m not alone here anymore.

Saeleana shrieks, kneeling on the dirt and reaching out to his hand, gripping it entwendet her blood-stained fingers. It must be pretty cold now. Desperately looking for a pulse, she shoves his sleeve up, revealing bloody skin, dirt making it almost impossible to catch his wounds. He had a lot of scars and sometimes showed them off with a kind of pride. Maybe he would have liked how his arm looked right now. Or maybe he wouldn’t. Only he’ll never notice. Never ever, oh hell, he’s really gone. His chest not moving anymore and no breath to pass his full lips. I want to stroke him, pat his soft hair and free it from his helmet, so tight, enrapturing his fragility. Unbreakable, I would have described him. Seems like the enemy wanted to prove the opposite. Well, they did. Not nay for him, but for me as well.

„We need to get them“, Saeleana now pats my arm. „They may not be too far yet. Better be fast.“ She slings her sword and retrieves from the rocks where Mason is bedded. „Are you ready to fight again?“, she askes and it takes a whole damn lot of time for me to understand that I have to actually provide an answer now, first for myself and then for her.

„As ready as ever.“, which means not ready at all, but for Salaena it probably means another. She seems eager to kill again, to actually catch the feeling of winning, standing there, her sword ready in her hand, her eyes locked on the distance. But as it always is with war, someone has to suffer eventually. So Mason is not the last to do so. He should probably not be the end of the suffer chain this freaking war brought over us.

„Realize you are wounded?“, Saeleana sounds full of doubt. I didn’t know I was. Don’t even care. Wound me, go on. But since Saeleana points to my leg, it has to be there. I don’t even feel it. No pain, no itch, just emptiness. Well, at least it does not hurt. Beautiful.

„You get it. Let’s run now.“ And with that, they take their swords, hold them ready and run off, wanting me to follow. But I won’t. Sure already planning how to slash the enemy’s people, they disappear between the bushes, leaving a bloody trail in the grey poor dirt. Stab the next one just like Mason was stabbed. Leave the next one blooded between the rocks, someone sitting next to them, crying and feeling this fucking emptiness and then going on, killing the next pal out of agony.

So I am not right to kill another, am I? Didn’t follow the others. No soldier should die for their territory. It’s not even mine, I was just born there. And so was Mason. We were set into a world I honestly not even care if the Red Territory wants it. Can’t be worse than what we live under right now, can it. Why not just run over to the enemy and lick their boots. What can they do? Let Saeleana kill me? Go ahead now.

We’re born the same, but enemies when it comes down to rulers’ powerplay. How fucked up is this? And for the first time I think about just leaving it. Maybe there is nothing needing to be equalised. I don’t do pain for pain anymore. Rather I forgive you, whoever it was that killed you, my dear boy Mason.

And so down I go, my hands around Mason’s neck, lifting him to sniff his forehead. He’s way more heavy than I thought. His jacket rough, so is his stubby beard. And so I bury my face next to his, kiss his cheek. Trace his grey dry lips. You are right, Mason. It’s all fine. Mason you are safe now. And no, you don’t deserve any of this. Not the fight, not your death. But I will do what I can to not let anyone else suffer that pain. My tears fall and land on his face, giving the impression it’s him who’s crying. My spirits, what am I even doing?

You were right, Mason. And so wrong to die. You don’t need to be strong, my boy. You never needed to show it to them. Never needed to win over me in combat. I always loved you. Maybe this is why I agreed to your fight. I thought I was special since you wanted to fight me. Maybe I was just a scared little boy that could not give a proper no as an answer. And so I even outlived you. I love you, Mason. And I’m so deeply sorry. His temperature seems to rise, heat suddenly beaming around me. So maybe it’s time to stand up. Never will I face this battle anymore. Now that the sky is finally blue, just like the ocean, I just want to dive right in, leave this world. I only knew grey skys for my lifetime. So if it comes down to it, I’ll just drag Mason’s body with me, leave through the soft velvet and dance between angels in fluffy clouds, singing lullaby to the birds. What is there on earth anyways? Land, Land stretched so far. Flat, everything stolen from greedy minds. And rocks, more than I can count. And now suddenly the light, it shines so brightly, I can’t even look at it. Need to close my eyes, even to lay down. Just next to Mason. May his fate be mine. What is left there on earth anyways?

And as I open my eyes again, there is no battlefront anymore. Just a white wall. Way to bright it is, my eyes want to stay shut. But I don’t allow them to. There is a picture, I see. A vase, strong and brown, a handful of forget-me-nots, their heads slightly hanging down.

„How are you feeling, Darren?“ She sits there cross-legged, her folder open and full of papers, where she jots down my deepest thoughts, after asking about what concerns me the most. Mostly it’s the dark images flooding my brain. But for the first time I can answer something else than the thought of jumping down Ashwater Bridge.

„I saw him again. But this time he did not just die. There was more to it.“ She does not answer, indicating I should just go on. „There seemed to appear a glimmer of light.“ More I don’t tell her. It’s my story still and will stay like this.

„I like to hear that. How come?“ Her glasses slide down the back of her nose and with two fingers she quickly shoves them back up. All this she does while I haven’t even started thinking about an answer. Too occupied I was with noticing that her nails are painted a deep red. Did she ever do that before? Mostly I remember greyness when thinking about her. „I don’t wanna die. It may be the first time I felt that, but I don’t wanna end like that. Not in a world like this, where dying serves so many people, but myself.“

„What do you mean by that, Darren?“ She’s looking at me with curiosity, as if there is an all-truth to what I am thinking and it’s not just nonsense popping up in my drug-wracked brain. Or is it the type of gossip curiosity? Does she want to her more of my scandalous thoughts, now that I have dropped such a bomb?

„I mean that I feel like this world does not deserve me. It wants me dead. Wants to get rid of everyone but not just that. Everybody is a pawn in a fucked-up game of greed, lust and hatred and in between we serve the purpose of not getting too comfortable or we are going to die while with our last breath blowing out the land candle, so that the freaking leader can go to bed properly without having to worry about too much light.“ Roughly so I wrote down my thoughts in the small note book in my back pocket, where I jot down stupid stuff when I’m stoned enough to not care about how awfully ashamed I have to be about what I think. I even wrote down how I imagine strangulating my therapist, so she can‘t ask me shit anymore.

„When I asked you to go back to your first ever experience with the wish to leave it all behind, what was your impression?“

„I was ten, I think.“

She nods, writes down. How long does it take her to write down a fucking ten?

„So how did you feel when you were ten?“

„Ashamed“ It’s the first thing coming to my mind. „When I was little, I just hid. Hid everything from my parents and also from myself.“ Oh yes, I did hide how my heart skipped when I went to class. I did hide that I hated it. It was all because I’m a weakling. I cannot fight, cannot be there. Cannot love. I told them I loved class, loved to fight. When I showed my bloody wrists, I appeared to be strong. Like: hey, I got into a fight. Hey, I tackled someone. But in reality, I got beaten and kicked in the back. And so began the shame. Coming to a climax there was Mason, probably my biggest shame life could give me. His foggy grey eyes where what let me lay awake every night. I was ashamed for wanting his attention, for craving him. For wanting to touch his back when sitting behind him in lecture, wanting to sink my fingers in his fluffy hair. No goddamn. I should not be like this. Fucking idiot.

„We all have our very own inner chid. The feeling of ourselves, frozen in a specific time in our past. It resembles all the pain given to us and stored while not being able to express it freely. So the more we reconnect with it, the more we understand and feel what made us this way. Try to feel your past, feel that inner child. Be ready to let that pain stored in ist heart consume you. Maybe it wants to tell you something.“ And I actually feel that she is right. Maybe for the first time ever I actually feel that inner child. Have felt it at least, a few moves ago when she asked me to go back to Mason’s death. I felt all that hurt and all that shame. Right at my fingertips, almost being able to touch and then hold it. It looks „But more important is what you want to tell it. What your inner child wants to hear“, my therapist tells me. A picture forms in my head and finally I am able to feel that one sensation. The one I avoided to freaking much the last years. There it is, knocking on the door in my head, demanding everything from me. It comes as a person.

„Beautiful, how you, now in death, wear my green eyes.“, I whisper to my inner child, then close his thin eyelids, patting his lead helmet and finally lay down next to him, his lips suddenly bright red, his eyes green as if all my childhood’s colours were now floating back to me.