Requiem for a Memory*

*Not really a poem but I thought you guys might forgive me.*

In December, days before Christmas, I died alone in a field.
A man who might have been a general knelt beside my lifeless body and whispered, "You're not gone," a promise to never forget.

He approached from the south, hands raised to show he was unarmed. His clothes matched the lifeless brown landscape and only smears of skin distinguished him from the mud. I stood transfixed, watching him pick his way through rubble and debris, forgetting my duty.
"Hey wha-! You! Stop! Stop where you are!" another watchman shouted, raising his rifle. "Identify yourself!"
His action forced me into reality and I reflexively mimicked him, raising my own rifle. The man stopped and looked up at us, hands still raised, but offered no reply.
Within moments a dozen soldiers burst through the gate beneath me and converged on him. With neither shout nor struggle the man was carried inside.
The other watchman caught my eye and shook his head, huffing in bewilderment. New contact would be big news among the men. The years had taken a toll and at this point, any news was good news.
Losing contact with Central Command had always been a possibility but eleven years is a long time and we'd forgotten how to hope. Standing orders were to 'hold ground' and our own officers continuously reminded us of the strategic importance of our outpost. Following orders isn't easy, just easiest, so that's what we did. We held our ground against the cold, the mud, and the boredom.
Our outpost had remained isolated from the war. There had been periodic updates of progress but the radios failed before long. The first few exploratory excursions had disappeared completely and the gates of the camp had remained sealed since. Insulated and isolated, we were blind and we were scared. 'The fight's not here' became a popular saying among the optimists.
Looking at my watch I realized I had another nine hours in my shift and longer until I had any real answers. I relaxed, preparing for the monotony and started when the door opened behind me. A man marked my superior stepped through; I saluted.
"Sargent."
"Nerves, private?"
I cleared my throat but he interrupted, "You're relieved. Report to headquarters for debrief."
"Sir? Yes sir."
I saluted again and left quickly, wondering exactly what I was expected to know.

Headquarters was an imposing building. Windowless and concrete, it towered over the lesser wooden structures and tents. It served many purposes but few of these facilities were often used. The officers had retrofitted most of the rooms to serve as their personal quarters. Concrete provides better protection than canvas and timber.
The interior was dim and it took a moment for my eyes to adjust. A few scattered candles illuminated the room. My vision brightened to a soldier directing me towards a far larger room with electric lighting. Nicknamed the War Room, central intelligence was dominated by a man standing at the head of a massive felt-topped table.
I stood at attention and waited to be addressed.
"At ease, private. I only have a few questions."
I adjusted my posture, but remained silent.
"Debrief me on the events of this afternoon."
"Sir? Uh, he didn't say anything, sir."
"He didn't identify himself?"
"No, sir."
"Mmm," he mumbled, looking down at his papers. "It says here you were a psycho-analyst before the war. That true?"
The question surprised me.
"Y-yes, sir."
"So what does a psycho-analyst really do? Frankly."
"Well, sir, I'm trained to analyze and evaluate and diagnose any-"
"I'm not looking for a dictionary definition, private."
I closed my mouth.
"Look, we need somebody to talk to the captive. Could you do that?"
I was no interrogator.
"Y-yes, sir, I could talk to the man."
He eyed me over the rim of his glasses.
"Sure you could. Dismissed."
When I returned to my bunk that night, a message was waiting for me:

REASSIGNMENT::WATCHMAN--INTERROGATION

Report to HQ: 0800

The stranger looked worn and even after a shower and a change of clothing he still looked dirty. A matted beard obscured the frame of his face and his visible skin was wind-burned and wrinkled. The man consisted almost entirely of thick hair and heavy lines.
"What's your name?" I asked.
"John," he grunted.
"Surname?"
"Johnson."
The far corner of his mouth turned up.
"Right. Okay, how about your rank?"
"I'm a general, see?"
"Oh?" I said, raising an eyebrow.
"That's right."
"So then you must know what's happening out there, eh?"
"Whatchu mean out there? You meaning the wilds? Huh! Same as always, you'd see."
I didn't know how to respond
"Strange question. Just how longs you been here, 'xactly?"
"Uh, a while I guess."
"And cooped up all the time?"
"Now just wait a minute," I said, "I'm asking the questions. So where are you from?"
"Not too far from here," he said.
"That doesn't really tell me much."
He just shrugged. "I seen a lot of guns. Who's you all fightin'?"
Speechless, I stammered in reply, "W-what do mean?"
"I says...Wait... Are you? Nah..." He drew silent for a breath, "Is you all still warrin' the big one?"
My head was swimming.
"Woah, woah woah. Wait. Wait. What are you...? No. NO! What are you saying?!" I said frenzied.
"Hey! Now, now bub, calm yourself. What's got you?"
"Wha-?! You're saying there's no war! Bub!" I shouted back.
"Hah. There's always a war mate. Trust that," He said simply.
Everything seemed far away and I rocked back and forth slightly, dizzy.
"You're lying."
"And now why would I do that?"
I just shook my head finding that I had nothing left to say. I had innumerable questions but wordlessly I grabbed my coat and left.

Later, in my bunk, sleep proved elusive as my mind tossed and turned. A million thoughts, a thousand emotions, all echoed the singular sentiment: What was it for?
I thought of Sarah for the first time in weeks. Thinking of her had used to be unbearable and I had thought of her constantly. Then a piercing numbness replaced the pain and filled the cracks in me like scar tissue and I had thought of her only often. Eventually time turned numbness to emptiness. The thought of Sarah was still painful, but there was less of me to feel it and less of me that cared to remember.

Her photograph, in mind, is faded and yellowed, I have looked upon it so long. The lines of her face blend and blur and I remember her in pieces. Figments of her in fragments of time, so often revisited as to develop a dusty sheen that highlights certain details and obscures the rest. Such rosy moments held so tightly to be polished and worn; like a lucky coin rubbed shiny they are changed and disfigured into caricatures.
Eventually I will lose her entirely. A lonely girl lost in the sea of time's great swells; just another soul separated and drowned alone.
Alone, but for me; dead, but for me; she is my burden and I am her ward.
And all of it meaningless.

The colonel wasn't convinced.
"He's lying. It's a part of his plan," he said, looking at me sharply. "If this gets out, there'll be dissension among the men! A dip in morale!" he was nearly shouting, "Half the men'll desert! We'll be vulnerable! They're out there, just waiting, I'm telling you. We'll all be slaughtered!"
A colonel need never explain an order to a private. Perhaps, he doubted my honor.
"Maybe you'd like me to keep interrogating the, uh, spy?" I asked, "I might learn more from him."
He rubbed his fingers together slowly, thinking, and finally answered, "No, I think not. He'll be kept in solitary confinement."
I nodded.
"It's for the best," he said, firmly.
A colonel convincing a private.
The salute felt oddly formal.
"Dismissed."

The next morning, rumor began to spread that the war was over. I had kept my silence but it didn't matter. The colonel was right about one thing: the soldiers were mutinous. Whole bands of men were deserting to brave 'the wilds'.
At midday, the colonel attempted to restore order with a moving speech reminding us of our duty and explaining the subterfuge of the stranger.
By nightfall little over half of the men remained.

There was a single guard posted on the doorway to the prison cells but because of the mass desertions my interrogator's clearance had yet to be revoked. The guard barely glanced at me as I stepped inside.
The man was awake in his cell and he watched as I moved a stool to sit in front of him.
"Well 'ello, again," he said.
I nodded
"So, what's going on?"
"I just felt like talking."
"Uh huh," he said, unconvinced, "So how 'bout all that?" He motioned toward the window.
"Well half of the men deserted because of you and the rest don't believe your story or just don't care anymore."
"And you?"
"What about me?"
"Do you believe me?"
"I don't know, I guess so."
He paused then said, "But, you didn't desert."
"Call me honorable."
"Huh, sure."
I didn't know how to continue.
"Okay look, I want you to be straight with me," I said.
"Ain't I been?"
"No, you haven't. I still don't know who you are. Where did you come from, anyway?"
He sighed. "A village north of here."
"Do you have family, there?"
"A wife, yeah," he said.
"So, what're you doing here?" I asked.
"Huntin'. Heading south we was, 'cause games is getting scarce. We saw your camp, big as it is, you'd see. I was the only one who wanted to see up close."
"Are they still out there waiting for you?"
"It's been but two not three days. They're there."
"South of here?"
"No, I said north."
"Hmm, okay. Say, how old are you?"
"I seen 43 summers."
"Well, you must've fought in the war. Were you conscripted?" I paused, "You weren't a rebel, were you?"
He half-laughed and said, "No, no, I avoided conscription."
"How so?"
"Well, let's just say, I was seeking closure."
We were both silent for a moment.
"What does that mean, exactly?"
It was a long time before he answered.
"Well... I had a boy."
"Had?"
"Look, boss, this is kind of personal stuff."
"You're the one in the cell," I said.
His face flushed with anger and he exploded, "He was killed! Murdered! Put down in the street like a broken dog... A child! Me boy'll never be a man. He'll never be a man because they stole him from me, the animals..." he paused and quickly calmed. He looked down at his restless hands, "Eleven he was."
"Who killed him?" I asked.
He shook his head, "It doesn't matter anymore. All of that is a world away now," he paused, "I still haven't let go though."
My chest constricted and I shifted in my seat. "They say it gets better, that time heals all. But nah, I think they're wrong. It gets easier, sure, but the pain never goes away; it never gets better."
He raised an eyebrow. "Yeah?" he said, "And who'd you lose?"
I didn't want to answer at first. I owed this man nothing.
I finally spoke, "Her name was Sarah."
He remained quiet, waiting.
"She was, you know, I don't know. What am I supposed to say? She was the greatest thing that ever happened to me. She was... she..." I found it impossible to continue. I thought this part of me had died years ago.
"How did she die?" he asked, quietly.
"She uh..." my throat kept getting tighter "she was killed in a protest. Before the war." I looked down at my hands. "She died in my arms."

I kept telling her that everything was going to be okay and that help was on the way. She reached up and placed a bloody hand on my cheek. I broke down, kissing her hand and muttering incoherently.
"Shh," she whispered, "This is not the end."
So calmly she had already accepted the inevitable.
"I can't lose you," I choked out.
"I'm not leaving. I'm here, now." she said, placing her red hand on my chest.
I sobbed uncontrollably.
She spoke quietly and with great strain, "I'll be with you always..."
I kept pleading with her to stay but she was already gone.

"Her strength at the end kind of broke me," I said, "I owed everything to her. And when I lost her... I guess I lost myself too. I just had to keep going though. For her instead of because of her, you know?"
He nodded looking down, avoiding my eye.
"What she said, I guess I took it literally. I mean, in a way she is still alive through me. I thought that I'd live the life Sarah would have wanted; I'd keep Sarah alive and remember her."
He just kept nodding.
"So I joined the army. As a woman she'd always resented being excluded from combat and I knew she never would have hesitated, so I signed on to fight the good fight." I said, raising my fist sarcastically in the air. "And to kill the monsters that killed Sarah."
He stopped nodding and met my eyes for just a moment but kept his silence.
"But even in vengeance I have failed... My story should have ended with hers."
I grew quiet, having finally said everything out loud.
The man studied me for a moment before saying, "You know, after... after my son passed I realized that no matter what, I found a reason to keep going. Something always kept me breathing. I found meaning in the aftermath. I learned that it takes more than loss to break a man." Then he looked up at me with regret, but not pity, in his eyes. "But now I'm not so sure."

I helped him escape, that night. He was the closest friend I'd had in years and I couldn't leave him in that cell. He had people who cared for him. I needed to get him back to his village and back to his wife.
I unlocked his cell and he slipped out the window. I left the way I'd come, past the guard who was now sleeping. I made my way downstairs and outside. He was there, waiting for me on the edge of camp.
"Come with me," he said.
"I... I can't leave."
"Why not?"
It was difficult to find a reason.
"I can't abandon them," I said.
"Why?"
"Sarah would never."
"Sarah's gone, mate, and, you're good as the same if you stay. Come with me. The grass is greener, you'd see."
"She's not gone," I said, shaking my head.
He seemed as if he were about to say something else but he just nodded. I found his regretful eyes one last time.
"Thank you," he said plainly before turning and disappearing into the shadows.
"Goodbye, John Johnson." I muttered to the moonless night.

The next morning, after the man's absence was noticed, the colonel gave another speech. The few remaining soldiers assembled in front of a raised, wooden platform, and the colonel began to speak,
"We, as soldiers of the Republic, have a duty to defend those who depend on us."
I tuned out. I didn't need to be reminded of duty. Ever since the day a bag of nails and a handful of gunpowder stole the light from my life I had carried on with a misplaced obligation to those long gone.
"...until the day we stand as a nation again."
Though the past was fractured, the future was hopeless. I had clung to the past, so terrified of loss as to alienate the future. And then, when looking forward, I realized there was nothing for me there.
"...we must fight..."
For what?
"...we will be victo-"
The colonel erupted in flame and debris. There were a few motionless moments as each man processed the situation. Simultaneously the soldiers around me burst into motion. The gunfire was continuous and came from every direction. Only a handful of the men had brought their rifles to the field that day and the bodies began to pile around me. Time slowed. Officers shouted orders but I couldn't hear them. Amidst sweeping motion I had yet to break parade rest. My chest felt strange. Breathing felt... fuzzy. Exhausted, I reached for an abandoned sack to rest my head and laid in the mud. I started to feel a pain like a cold emptiness but I found I could ignore it entirely. I took a ragged breath and closed my eyes.

This moment is the last of her life and in this instant I recall only the emotions, without context. A lifetime breaks over me like the crests and troughs of an ancient sea. And when at last the waves calm I find no meaningful conclusion.
Lay me down.
Let me sleep.

Forget me and forget the rest.