Forever Forgotten
A
tall man ran over the top of a trench. His mind was racing. Every few seconds
he heard a scream and a thud. He dared not look. Barbed wire was slicing men's
bodies as they fell lifeless upon it. He slowed to a stop by a shell crater and
stared. All around him was death. Nothing else. In that moment, he realized
what he was fighting. This wasn’t the war to end all wars, this was nothing but
a blood-soaked massacre. He slumped to his knees, not caring about the cold or
wet.
He
heard a shout of pain. Slowly he looked into the crater. He looked scared- the
man he found in there. Not mean or cruel- but scared and hurt. He was sinking
down in a mixture of quicksand and bones. He screamed in an ineligible tongue.
Everything seemed to stop- everything besides the tears in the man's eyes. The
deafening bombs where nothing to his ears as he stared at the man.
Realizing
what he could do to help the man, he broke. Tears soaked the earth. Cold, hard
metal was clenched in his hand. He choked on his own spit and gripped the metal
so harshly that his hands bled. The man cried in pain. He looked into his eyes.
One was glazed over, and that side of his face was mutilated. His skin was
melting of off his face- exposing the bone.
He
squeezed his eyes shut. They stung. He couldn’t do it. But he had to. He was in
pain. He was suffering. He stared at him once more. Thinking - begging - that
there was another way to save him. He raised his hand, the thing feeling
heavier than what he was about to do. The noise deafened him. A shell fell near
him. All he did was look at the man's face. He looked at peace.
Washes of pain and guilt flew through him as he watched him sink until
there was nothing left. The weight of what he did made him crumble. Sounds
seemed to deafen him, but he was never relieved from the man. The bang replayed
within his head - torturing his every breath. The ground rumbled and smoke
raised a few meters away.
Almost limp, he crawled over to the pit, staring into its deathtrap. He
stumbled into his knees. He reached for the piece of metal. He placed it just
between his eyes. How at peace he was going to be.
He
distantly heard the shot as his body went numb. All thoughts and worries left
him as he fell forward to his grave-
Forever Forgotten.
Amy Peck.
November 2020 - Remembrance Day Work in
Creative Writing Club inspired by a reading of Carol Ann Duffy’s poem ‘The
Wound in Time’ and director Danny Boyle’s ‘Pages of the Sea’ – a commemoration
of the WW1 Centenary in 2018.
Danny Boyle talking about Pages of the Sea:
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