60 seconds

60 Seconds

60 Seconds

0

In the vacuum of waiting, with the hissing of my blood pumping, with shallow breaths, thoughts of my mother... a seashell once placed to my ear. A tear fell.

Then the smell reached me. I couldn't place it. I didn't know it yet. A damp air of rotten pennies. It had no beginning. It would have no end.

I watched my tear fall to the ground, a swirl of rain and mud. I closed my eyes. Beside me, a stream cut through the green, its silence broken by diamonds of sunlight. My dog jumped the stream. I placed a boot into the muddy bank — a loud bang above me — I was back, where bright crimson pooled around my boot.

Something moved and broke my concentration. A small, feral dog, its ribs visible, the collar sagging under its neck, feasting on guts as if rummaging through a restaurant bin. I raised my foot to crush its life. My boot held high.

The dog stopped, looked up with wet eyes, then was gone.

I looked towards the ladder. Rain gently slid down its rungs, leaving behind a shine as it made its way towards my boot and the blood underneath. The rain stopped at the blood, then made its way past — but the diamonds had vanished.

My hand trembled — bones, tendons, and the pressure building in vessels.

I gritted my teeth until my jaw shook. I pushed a fist to my mouth to feel something. I closed my eyes, searching for the stream — only darkness, where white dots danced before me. I gripped the rifle to the point of pain and held it.

I felt a sudden pressure. A hand rested on mine. I looked to my right. A soldier, a year older than my 18 years.

His eyes were sunk almost black, as if they were protecting him from something.

Bones, tendons, vessels — calmed.

Then the hand was gone.

15

The sound of muffled sobbing turned my head. He was further along the trench. Sixteen years old. I knew he was sixteen — he'd told me on the way here.

We had shared the same train from London. Grey buildings and smoke. We talked fast. Blue skies touched rolling green. We stopped, watching birds fly high. Neither of us said if we'd wanted to keep going.

In the silence he whispered he had lied to his parents — they didn't know he was on this train.

I stared out the window. The birds had gone. My reflection was still and hollow. I looked into my own eyes — the scenery vanished, our eyes locked together. I snapped my head towards the seats. Closing my eyes, I took a breath, raised my head, and stared back out the window.

I could see them. She was sitting at the kitchen table, her tears dropping to the letter. He was standing behind, his arm patting her shoulder. Pipe in his mouth.

The fast talk vanished.

He looked like he had put on his dad's tunic and picked up a toy gun to play.

His body was hunched almost into a ball, his chin pushed into his chest. His knees began to buckle. In one swift movement he snapped upright, his chin pulling to the sky. His head began to bow again, but he brought his arm up and forced the cuff of his jacket into his mouth.

A soldier stood beside the boy, tunic ripped and bloodied, its buttons bursting from his size. He rested a large hand on his shoulder.

A wet, choking sound rippled along the trench. Ladders leaned against the mud wall in a crooked row, slick with damp earth. Two soldiers lingered beside one — one clamped a cigarette between his lips, the paper trembling. The other struck a match; it flared, wavered, then died, his hand still shaking.

30

I held the ladder in front of me. I looked down. The dog had long gone.

Drizzle fell from white fog within the trench. The men, the ladders, even the dead — the world lost its sharpness. Voices I couldn't see. Only the smell remained true.

The fog became whiter. Broken posts and barbed wire — objects of little importance. But how I pray I'll see them again.

I put a hand in my pocket and pulled out a picture of my mother and father. They stood in front of our garden gate. My mum smiling, wearing her apron — I'd never seen her without. My father stood tall, chest puffed out, holding a pipe.

Then the pipe wasn't there. Nothing was there. Just the mud and the waiting.

45

A string through my body pulled taut. I puffed my chest out. I wasn't asked to.

My eyes glared, I breathed in hard and blew out air as raindrops scattered.

My legs fizzed and electricity raced through my stomach to my throat.

My boot slammed onto the first rung, the ladder shook, the rung almost snapped. My fingers found the wood and refused to let go.

I looked around. Others heard. And slowly they followed my lead.

Where does the yellow go in the moment of truth? I stared at the blood surrounding my boot. It had become brighter.

I placed the next foot on the rung above. I heard something flap in a sudden gust of wind. I looked behind.

The flag. Our flag. My flag.

Red, white and blue pierced the grey. It hung with heaviness from its pole — torn and charred at the edges. Bones, tendons, vessels — steady. I never saw my father's flag touch the earth. I will never allow this one to.

I pulled another boot, then another. Splinters bit through my glove. I didn't feel them.

What are you? My teeth and jaw locked. I breathed in and out, short and sharp.

I turned towards the sixteen-year-old. He was level on the ladder. He looked at me and smiled.

The tunic now a perfect fit.