Autumn Ferrum: Short Story (2020)

Autumn Ferrum

I sat down upon a grassy hill overlooking what seemed like an endless meadow. Brown and orange leaves began to fall and cover the horizon while birds tweeted in song as the cool autumn breeze flowed through my hair. I could smell what I could only describe as nature in all its splendor, the rough wooden musk of the forests and a damp but cool grassy aroma was all around me.

In the distance was a single country road that only seemed to have one car pass every half an hour. The road was full of cracks and hadn’t seen any repairs in years, there were no markings on it and you would struggle to fit anything bigger than a VW Camper van on it, yet it served its purpose well. The road seemed to go on forever and lead from the larger towns that were miles away to a small village that seemed like it had not changed since the 1950s.

That village was where my family had used to live and I guess you could say where we originated from, it was a beautiful sight all year round and I’ve always had fond memories of being there. The people had a neighbourly feel, they would do anything for you and you could always count on them to give you a smile with a wave every time they saw you. I was born there but moved away from an early age to the city. The city was a place where I never really felt like I belonged, I would always ask my parents ‘When are we going back to see Grandma and Grandpa at the village?’. 

I suspect my parents knew that I wanted to return to live there, perhaps they wanted to as well deep down, but my parents struggled to maintain a job in a place that was stuck in time. The city always held more opportunity for us but with that it held more stress, distance from each other and more. I always felt like people were not so kind in the city, they were too busy to show a smile. I would always be so happy when my Dad said we were going to the village on the weekend, sometimes I wonder if he just made an excuse to go just for my sake.

It was a fair drive to get from the city to the village but the excitement would overflow within me every time we left the city and I began to see those Green landscapes. My mind would fill with the memories of Sunday lunches at the village pub which for some reason was always roasting hot regardless of the season. Or sitting by the stream and looking at all the tiny fish and bugs that would coexist in harmony. It made me wonder why we as humans couldn’t be as peaceful as these creatures sometimes.

You could walk the length of the Village and the surrounding areas relatively quickly but it never got boring for me. The summers here were some of the best times of my life, you could never experience nature like this in the city these days which made me feel a slight guilt to all those kids who never had the opportunities like I did to come to such amazing places like this. I loved this place so much and wanted to make more memories here. I’d always said to myself I’ll come back for good someday and I eventually did, just not how I envisioned.

I was sat upon the grassy hill once more but now the smell of burning and ash filled the air, the lush foliage was all but a small patch of black and broken tree trunks and the picturesque locale was now a crater filled barren wasteland of misery.

There was metallic wreckage everywhere with a mixture of blood and the oil from what once was a killing machine spilled onto the cracked country road. My countries flag was torn apart but still waving in the ghastly wailing wind. This flag had been a gift to the village that was brought back by the young men who had fought a war in this countries name years ago but was now no more than a tattered symbol of what once was.

I pulled my long hair away from my face and found dried blood upon my forehead, it felt like dried paint that had flaked and peeled from an old building wall, it itched like hell. How long had I been out for and why was a dreaming about the past? I stood up and dusted myself off, there were small rips within my suit but I was otherwise alright, my vital signs were showing all green but I was desperate for some water. I drank a small amount from my hip flask and gasped. The battlefield seemed relatively empty; all I could hear was the ghostly moan of the wind and the sound of the rain that had begun to fall in front of me.

England had been at war for some time, the country was in ruin and the majority of those I knew before the war that hadn’t also joined the defence force were long buried in the ground, I’d buried a lot of them myself in fact. The war came after years of turmoil between countries and England had lost the support of many of its peers thanks to blindly following the USA and their decisions.

Nobody is truly right or wrong in war but regardless England paid the price much like the countries that fell before it and like those who would likely fall after it. I had always felt proud to be British, my family would always tell me stories about the past and what the British had fought for during the First and Second World Wars but I only joined this battle to protect those around me. I wanted to fight to protect the places I loved and this Village was one of them.

Smoke had filled the air of the once beautiful country side and it looked as though the sky could fall apart at any moment. I grabbed my pilot helmet and put It back on my head before picking my pistol out of my leg holster, for all I knew I could be attacked at any moment and I didn’t feel like taking my chances. I still felt disorientated and dizzy as if I’d had one too many drinks earlier in the day but I knew I had to move to a safer location or I wouldn’t be seeing the end of this war.

I looked behind where I had awoken and saw my machine was lying in a crater looking a little worse for wear. The OX-450 was meant to be a state-of-the-art machine designed for the modern warfare of both air, land and sea depending on what attachments you had. It was gunmetal grey, humanoid in shape and almost looked like a robotic SWAT team member but with some not so subtle sci-fi elements mixed in, I guess the designers were big nerds. My machine was the Armoured variant, basically it was slower but could take a punch or two and had a huge amount of missile pod attachments that had since been jettisoned in the battle.

Looking at the damage it had sustained the Armour had done its job however my machine was now a shell of its former self, what remained was a torn exoskeleton frame, a single arm and a half-melted visor which meant the main camera would be useless. I began to wonder if it would turn on at all, but if there was one thing I could be sure of from the British was that we make machinery that can take a beating and keep chugging along like an old Land Rover.

I got into the machine, strapped myself to the chair and initiated the start sequence. The lights flickered within the unit a number of times before staying on as the operating system flared up In front of my face albeit on a cracked and dirty screen. ‘So far so good’ I thought to myself as the chugging along of the motors began to fill the silence of the battlefield. I began checking if everything was in order and found that I could get the unit back into the upright position but as I thought the main camera had been rendered useless thanks to the melted visor.

I attempted to use the built-in radio to try and reach somebody for an evacuation but the radio would not even turn on. ‘Ok looks like I’ll have to get out of here the hard way then.’ I said to myself with an unenthusiastic tone. With the main camera gone it was not going to be easy getting around and I began to feel the dread of the journey ahead of me.

I knew I would have to keep the main hatch open if I wanted to navigate myself to a safer location but all I could think about was the risk, It made me an open target. I popped the emergency hatch release lever and watched as the compressed air shot the door a few feet in front of me into the boggy mud below. I thought back to the briefing we received before deployment, the village was to be a fall-back zone if anything went awry and it clearly had by the looks of the battlefield.

I decided the best course of action would be to head to the village and try to find some sign of my squad or a way to contact somebody so that I get out of here. I felt uneasy but wasn’t sure if it was because I was seemingly alone on the battlefield or because I had to go back to the Village. That place was full of only happy memories for me and yet I’d have to return when it was no more than a dilapidated husk compared to its former self.

When I’d received the briefing on this mission before deployment, I was hesitant for the first time in my military career. I was supposed to be the person that my squad looked up to and followed the orders of without question and yet I remained silent and looked at the floor like a child waiting outside a class after being sent out. I don’t know what I had expected when I heard the battle had moved to this region but I never wanted to return to this place, not until the battle was over at least but it would seem that if we were fighting here then everything and everyone I’d known from this place wouldn’t be coming back anyway.

That was the only resolve I had left at this point, I wanted to do right by my family and protect what was left of this place so that we could eventually rebuild and in time have other people live in peace, create memories and be like I used to be.

I felt the cool chill of the air breeze by my arm where the material had been torn and shuddered, it made me long to sit by a fire place with a nice cup of warm tea. I began to attempt to get the machine to lift out of the crater but it seemed to struggle, the mud was so thick the exposed legs of the machine were getting covered like a pair of shoes after you’d tried to walk into a boggy puddle, all the air was trapped and keeping it in place.

I knew I’d have to try and dig it out but that just meant more time out in the open and a larger risk of getting caught by the enemy. I reached for a shovel kept in the back of the machine and hopped back down while being careful not to get myself stuck in the same mud. The shovel was a little bent up thanks to the impact of the attack but with a little elbow grease it could still did the job. I got to work while I began to think back to when the war began.

***

I was helping in the garden with my Mother and Father, we were planting numerous vegetables in a new patch of soil we had just dug out as we had always wanted a vegetable garden like my Grandparents had in the village. I’d begged for cherry tomatoes to be included in our new patch because it reminded me of visiting my Grandparents and getting sent home with a whole heap of them. I was around 16  years old during this time and had just finished high school, this was going to be my final Summer vacation before I headed to College.

I knew my life was about to change after that summer but I never expected it to take the turn that it did. My younger brother came running out of the house screaming ‘Mum, Dad you have to come look at the news right now it's horrible, I'm scared!’. My parents tried to calm him down but he was in a state of shock, we all came inside and saw the headlines scrolling across the screen ‘Breaking News: San Diego hit with an Atomic Bomb’. It felt like a dream, like something out of a movie but we quickly accepted this this was real and soon after that our lives would begin to change.

The worst part of all this was that to this day all these years later we still don’t know who was responsible for the initial attack, nobody ever claimed to be involved. Was it terror related? perhaps the Russians or North Korea? Quite understandably the USA went into a panic trying to figure out who had attacked them. They began to deploy their Army in multiple countries, anywhere they would have had some sort of anti-US intel over the years and began what the world media called their ‘personal war for revenge’.

Of course, the UK supported the US in their deployments, the special relationship was something the UK needed and because of the fear that the same thing could happen to us we were more than happy to do as we were told. Nuclear deterrence was still in full swing for quite some time after this event though, likely because the USA didn’t know where to drop one even if they wanted to.

This would soon change however, with their constant deployments those living in the deployed countries would begin to tire of their aggressive and frankly oppressive attitude which would culminate in a number of countries allying together in order to fight off the USA and their allies.

The USA were becoming the ‘bad guy’ they wanted to stop and the UK along with them like their minion. Perhaps they never saw it themselves but the UK did and it was with one event that we and other allies parted ways with them for good. It was 4 years ago this month that they dropped a nuke of their own over the Atlantic Ocean, their excuse was that they believed they were due to be the victim of one themselves and they had to act.

Perhaps it was true or perhaps it was the paranoia they had no doubt felt since San Diego, perhaps they wished only to show the rest of the world they were not afraid to use a nuclear weapon again if they needed to. Whatever the reason was they decided to only give a short warning to their own troops and the allies that had been supporting them for so long. They succeeded in wiping out a huge part of the enemy’s naval forces and who knows perhaps they did stop a nuke hitting them first but the cost to their own side and our troops was too great.

Even with the order to retreat there was little to no time for anyone to get far enough away, the blast took out enemy and ally alike. After the realisation of what had happened the allies all but abandoned the US who remains an ever present wildcard that has been fighting ever since.

***

I joined the war without much choice, there was a sense of doing what is right and helping our allies who had suffered a terrible tragedy but nobody really wants to go to war do they? The draft to National Service was reintroduced just before I turned 18 when deployments were on the increase and loss of life was rising.

Training was hard, I had never been pushed so much in my life. How I wished I was back in an exam hall struggling with GCSE maths questions rather than running through an assault course everyday and being shouted at by a drill sergeant who had the most punchable face in the country. I felt that my struggle was nothing compared to those who had survived (if you can call it that) the nuclear attack on San Diego and so I had to keep on pushing.

I was scared the same thing could happen to us at any time so I used that fear to try and excel and do my part for my country and others, perhaps I became a poster child for the UK Army in a sense but I knew I had to do my best if I wanted to survive. When I was told I had completed my training I was ecstatic to get deployed and protect what I held dear to me, but I didn’t realise I’d already lost it.

The day I finished my training at the academy was the day I found out my parents and brother were wiped out in a bombing run a month prior. Nobody felt the need to tell me, they had had a few cadets go AWOL or worse when they informed them of this kind of news so I guess their thought process was if I had already graduated, I could use the grief and anger to their benefit.

They were right, I didn’t shed a single tear I just grit my teeth and asked when my first deployment would be. As soon as I got to the battlefield I unloaded on the enemy and screamed but I didn’t feel any better, after that I struggled to feel anything again for some time.

I continued to progress and move through the ranks of the Army, from infantry to the Tank regiment and finally to where I am now, the ‘Machine Regiment’. It’s strange when the whole worlds at war we have all this time and effort put into making the best killing machine but when the worlds at relative peace we can’t figure out half of the worlds problems no matter how many people we throw at them right?

Regardless of position I just struggled to care about it all, I thought every day would be my last and just did what I had to do. It was only recently that I found some form of compassion again, when I was selected to be a squad leader for a bunch of rookies. Kids that looked fresh out of high school, a little stubble, rosie cheeks and spots all over.

Initially I felt a sense of dread in having to be responsible for those that would likely become expendable but they were nothing like I expected, they wanted to learn, to do well and to protect. They weren’t just here because they had to be or because they felt it would be ‘cool’ to be in the Army, no they were here because they wanted to be.

We became the closest thing to a family I had in such a long time, we had only been together for 6 months before I woke up in this crater but I cherished every moment of my time with them. To hear about their worries, their successes and their dreams once the war was over, It made me feel my own sense of hope, these guys would usher in the next generation once this was all over so let’s make sure we fight not just for them but for those that aren’t even born yet.

We were all deploying together once again, the youngest two a lad named Joe and a girl named Estelle were joking around like they always did, I always suspected they liked each other. My most promising student Phil was leaning up against his machine with a stoic look I was sure he did on purpose and finished his cigarette. The others were all cleaning up their machines and looking at me like they knew if they were with me they would be alright. This deployment was to be as routine as any other but as you now know, it didn’t quite go to plan.

***

I had finally finished digging my machine out of the mud, I was sweating profusely and desperately needed some more water, thankfully my hip flask still had a small amount of water left. I drank it down without stopping which was followed by a huge gasp for air, I felt a little better and somewhat hopeful that I could make a move to safety soon.

I began the bootup sequence again, the machine made a familiar whirring sound and the display flickered to life once more. I buckled myself in and began to operate, I knew I would have to be quick or my machine would get stuck once again. I had just enough thrust left in the legs in order to make a quick jump out of the crater but I had to make it count.

I turned the thrusters to full and pushed the lever forward as quickly as possible while revving the pedals below, I could hear my parents voices in my head while doing it. ‘Why do you always rev the engine so much? It’s not a race car, are you trying to relive your misspent youth, boy racer?’ my Mum would say to my Dad. ‘What are you on about love I’m just trying to get us there on time!’ he would respond.

I couldn’t help but laugh but I missed their almost constant bickering. I put everything I could into the pedal and the machine began to thrust upward while making a loud whooshing sound like a blowtorch attached to a megaphone.  The machine began to lift slowly as it hovered out of the crater, in hindsight it was for the best that most of the armour plating was destroyed otherwise I’d never have gotten out.

I landed the machine on more stable ground and began to walk it slowly to the village, a lonely Golem wondering the wastelands of rural England to find solace and peace once again. I’m sure it looked like something out of a dystopian Sci-fi movie, I felt like one of those lone ranger types who moved from town to town drifting from one job to the next.

I wondered to myself if those kind of lone wolf characters ever actually felt lonely or not? They’re always portrayed as tough as nails guys who don’t care about anyone but themselves and yet I’m already feeling the crippling isolation of silence take hold of me. I guess I’d never be the main character in a story like that.

A rumbling sound in the clouds began to get louder, I’d hoped it were reinforcements and worried it may be the enemy coming to mop up those of us who may still be on the battlefield. It was neither as the sky began to flash intermittently and rain began to pelt across the open hatch door of my machine. The damp air began to feel good against my exposed skin and for just a brief moment I felt relieved that I didn’t have to return to another battle.

I began to feel like these constant battles had gone on long enough, Yeah I was good at what I did but I never felt good about it. The amount of people that had their lives ended by my hands that I’d never even seen the faces of. Each person behind a helmet, a machine or a building. These thoughts weighed on me from time to time but I was a squad leader and I couldn’t let my squad see any sign of weakness, they had to follow me without question and because of that I’d push my feelings away as best I could.

It’s sad isn’t it?

I continued moving and came upon a large hill, just over this hill it would be around 5 more minutes until I reached the village and hopefully find some of my squad or some way to contact someone. At the foot of the hill was what looked like the wreckage of another machine, from the incline I was at I couldn’t yet tell if it was a friendly or not.

I began to worry if the village had been taken over or was this one of the enemies who tried and failed to take it, maybe over this hill I’ll see my whole squad waiting for an evacuation and ecstatic that I’m still alive.

I reached the foot of the hill and saw it was my own sides wreckage, an older model machine that was now just a pile of scrap, inside were the remains of someone but I couldn’t make out if it was my own squad or another, I didn’t wish to know. ‘Sorry you had to go out like this, I hope that wherever you are now you are at peace’. I sighed; this was a common occurrence on the battlefield but it never got any easier to see death up close.

I scanned the horizon; I was in a large humanoid machine on the top of a hill in which every side of the hill would easily be able to see me. I couldn’t be any more of a target if I tried, I wondered if I bailed and ran from the machine towards the village would I be able to make it should I be attacked…. No I’d definitely meet my end.

I let the machine wait upon the hill like a statue of some sort of deity looking over its domain. Minutes went by and… nothing happened, no army came charging after me, no projectiles came flying my way and sadly nobody from my squad or any other came out of the village to welcome my return. It was just as I thought, I was still alone.

Any hope that I had held on to was beginning to dwindle away. I knew my chances for evacuation were slim but I had to get to the village, I had to see if the base camp was still in tact and if I couldn’t try to contact someone, anyone. I really didn’t want to return to this village I didn’t want my positive memories to be stained with the ash of what it had become but I knew I had to go back if I wanted to get out of here alive.

I pushed onward and let the machine slowly walk down the hill towards the village, the footing thankfully didn’t slide too much and I made it down without any issues. I walked by the old farm houses on the outskirts and saw the remains of tractors and equipment that had likely been there since before I was born. Isn’t it funny what seems to become a fixture of the landscape in these kind of areas, almost like it’s all part of the charm and a way of the village saying ‘Yeah we don’t change with the times, deal with it’.

I always found old machinery like that fascinating and felt like it had a long life story it could tell if only it could communicate, perhaps the machinery left on the battlefield would have their own stories to tell, I wondered what my machine would say.

As I walked along the cracked and pothole ridden road I began to step over telephone poles and attempt to move abandoned cars out of the way. It was becoming a chore to get to the village but I made it. The machine would have to stay outside the centre as the building were so close together it would never get through. I knelt the machine down and jumped out.

I looked back up at my machine and was thankful I got to my destination in one piece. ‘Thank you, you’ve always done a good job for me’ I said as if I was expecting a ‘Don’t mention it’ back from the Golem. I walked through the village and headed towards what remained of the village hall, I remembered in the briefing that would be where the comms team would be based and perhaps their equipment would still be there.

I walked through the streets as the wind made a ghastly howl, I truly felt like the last person on Earth and for all I knew, I was. The village was in a sad state and the village hall was now nothing more than rubble on the ground. I found the remains of the comms teams’ equipment was strewn across the road, it looked like they had left in a hurry but for what reason? What had happened here?

I found a discarded radio on the floor and picked it up desperately hoping that it would work. Before attempting to use it I walked to the children’s play park across the street and sat down on the remains of a rusted out swing set, the same swing set I’d loved as a young girl. I took a large breath and pressed hard on the radio as it crackled static.

‘This is Ferrum Leader can anyone read me, over?’….. But there was no response.

I tried again ‘This is Ferrum Leader I repeat can anyone read me, what happened out here over?’

The radio began to buzz and distort in an almost angry manner for some time until I heard the faintest response.

‘Ferrum leader this is control, what the hell are you still doing out there we thought you were KIA, over?’ The voice responded with slight sign of horror.

‘I got thrown from my machine after they attacked us, they got us by surprise. The rookies were getting slaughtered out here I had to rush in and give them some time to fall back…. Did they make it, did we do it?’ I said in such a way that I couldn’t believe it was me talking, I was beginning to sound like a mother who had lost their child.

‘Ferrum Leader, the rookies made it back safely thanks to you’ the voice said. I felt a sense of relief, these kids that never wanted to really be here in the first place but were thrown into the fight like I was years ago. I wanted them to keep on living and for now they were, I felt like I could rest easy and that everything was going to be alright, but that wasn’t going to happen.

The voice continued after a pregnant pause, ‘Ferrum Leader we thought everyone in that zone was out or KIA, we tried to wait at an evac point but it was too crazy out there. We had to leave the battle was lost, I’m sorry.’

My heart sank. ‘What do you mean? There is nobody here at all, the enemy is nowhere to be seen it’s just a wasteland now. If they won then wouldn’t they still be here somewhere?’ I shouted in disbelief.

‘Ferrum Leader…. I’m sorry but we had received intel that the area you’re in is going to be carpet bombed, the enemy have begun to do this on all fronts before they take over as a means of making sure there is no further danger to them. That’s why there is nobody there, it was already due to have happened… yo- hav- get….‘ The radio died along with my chance of retrieval and with that a silence filled the air. I began to feel hopelessness take over, I began to panic.

‘Hello, control!... CONTROL!?’ but there was to be no response. I threw the radio against the ground and it shattered into pieces. I felt betrayed, how could they leave me here after all I had done for them and this country? But I knew deep down that they had no choice but to retreat, we had lost and command would have wanted to withdraw as many viable soldiers as possible to fight another day.

I couldn’t really fault their decision, it was smart from a tactical point of view but it didn’t make me feel much, I was happy my rookies were out of the battle but for how long were they safe? If we lost here then what’s to say we will ever win, that they will ever see the peace that I’ve fought so long for?

I knew my time was limited now, I had always thought to myself if I knew I were going to die what would I do with my remaining time? A part of me just wanted to be surrounded by family and have a good time, another part of me felt like I should have a bucket list of some sort. Either way I thought I’d like to have returned here at some point and feel at peace. I guess in a way I got my wish right?

Although everything was now decrepit, I wanted to take a final walk around until I was wiped away from this Earth like so many of those I’d cared about before. I took off my helmet and left it in the dirt behind me. My eyes scanned the horizon but all I could focus on was my machine, its decimated body and face leaning over the street before it as if it were a monument to those that had fallen before me.

What was left of its exposed facial features almost looked sad as if it were in mourning for me, a dark rain began to fall from the clouds and splash off the metal exterior as I walked away. It felt as though I was walking to my own funeral. My mind filled with images of my family, my old friends and my old squad. I ended up in the middle of the village after a few minutes of walking, I’d arrived at what was my Grandparents home, now no more than a few walls and half a roof but I entered regardless.

I looked around the living room and saw the old fireplace was still intact. It reminded me of Christmas day, sitting in front of the open fire opening my new gifts while the family were induced into food comas from Grandmas famous Christmas Turkey recipe. I took a closer look at the fireplace and found a picture frame was laying face down in the dust and debris that had accumulated over time.

I picked it up and blew as much of the dust away as I could before wiping the residue away with my gloved hand. Once it was clear I found it was a picture of the whole family, me, my brother, my parents and grandparents. It must have been when I was around 10 years old

I took the picture out of the frame and into my front pocket, at least I could have my family with me in some way when the time came to go. I sat in the doorway of the home and smiled, I’m happy I could return here one last time. As I left I felt that I had nowhere else to go, what more could I do with this short amount of time I had I wondered.

A few doors down the street was the local pub, I thought to myself if I was going to go out I may as well try and get pissed up first, it’d take some of the edge off I guess. I felt like a teenager again who was secretly drinking without my parent’s knowledge although in hindsight I suspect they always knew what I was doing.

I found my way to the pub, The ‘Red Lion’ A name that always made me laugh, it was inescapable. I mean it was the most common pub name in the UK but this place had its own distinct charm, the hanging baskets were still outside the front door from a number of summers prior, yet the flowers had long since died out.

A large black wooden door which had been here since the Pub opened decades ago was still standing in front of me, in fact the majority of the building was still there save for a few of the windows on the first floor being blown out. I attempted to open the door but it seemed to be jammed tightly.

I was not about to let this door deny me a final drink though. ‘Oh come on…. alright then have it your way’ I muttered to myself. 

I took a run up and sprinted into the door using my shoulder to smack against it hard. A large bang escaped as the door opened and the lock on the other side broke off. I winced a little as my shoulder felt like it had come into contact with a brick wall rather than a wooden door.  ‘Ok ouch, that hurt more than I thought, nothing better than nursing a wound with a nice beer though…or maybe some whiskey’. I’d taken to talking to myself more and more that longer I had to wait for the end, It drowned out the loneliness. 

I walked around the bar and saw the same fixtures you’d find at any village pub, a fruit machine that scammed you out of your pocket change, a dart board nobody would have used even before the war and a Pool table that I reckon was damaged way before the war started. I walked up to the bar almost expecting a barmaid to come waltzing out of the back room and serve me. After I’d realised that was not going to happen, I walked beyond the bar myself and began looking for some whiskey.

It would seem that when this village was abandoned most of the alcohol was taken with it either by the residents themselves or by those passing by from time to time. I wouldn’t be surprised if the Army took it before retreating knowing some of the bigwigs up top. I began to open draws and old bottle fridges desperately trying to find something when I noticed an old bottle of a local ale had become lodged under the bar unit floor.

I picked it up and dusted it off the glass was cracked and could have done with a good wash but at this point I could not have cared less. I sat on the bar stool and faced where the front door used to be, the grey ashen sky being my only view of a battlefield we failed at winning on.

I began to hear the droning of warplanes far off into the distance. I wondered if any of my comrades could hear the same if they too were still alive out there. I began to sip on my beer as a tear rolled down my cheek, the realisation that it would all soon be over was too much but the thought that I could hopefully find peace in the next place allowed me to smile one last time.

A small ray of sunlight broke through the dark clouds and hit me, the short burst of warmth made me think of the long summer evenings here with friends and family. I began to think of a world that could have been. I was seeing flashes of a life I wanted for myself like holding my new baby and introducing them to everyone here in this pub, seeing them grow older each year, seeing my parents into retirement and more. These are the moments I’d never live.

I finished the rest of my beer and closed my eyes as the sounds of the planes got loud enough to drown out any thoughts I could have. A tear rolled down my face as the scorching heat from the blast took me away.