The night was clear and was barely overcast with much of the moon’s surface alight. Shining upon the seas, the sparkles of the moonlight shimmered on the waves as crests broke over debris. Ships and boats, their sails and anchors, from hulls to propellers, vessels and ruins from nearby towns washed ashore. It was total war having birthed chaos that stayed unforgiven by many like those on the promenade that the homeless called their new home. They buried their faces in wrath underneath the bashas that they had erected, fearing that one day, their temper would explode, lining the gardens and parks of the seaside where bike paths and walk trails were once favored for evening strolls. Along bollards and railings, some flushed away themselves to the bottom of the sea. Chains rusted and ropes snapped in the town that seemed to begin to spiral into constant disrepair. Everywhere was in disorder. No matter how close or how far one searched. To a wall behind them, a hundred paces out, of houses with haunting faces, or to the blades of grass by their feet. The most lively of streets had become nothing but a shelter for the poor. When fights broke out over the simplest things, justice was hardly brought. Whether it was for a can of food or an extra loaf of bread, there was no sense in anyone’s mind. Some could not give a single care.
A pair was huddled away on their own beneath an urban woodland who had miraculously survived the day of judgement. They sat before trails of black smoke rising from their fire. Feeding branches to lengthen its life but tossing leaves into the pit to soften the edges of the flame, they often feared that the crackling fire that reflected the disaster of that night might occur again. The scenes of hell repeated in their heads, worse than what they had experienced. All that could help was the chatter that sought to dress their mental wounds paranoid of the skies. Their thoughts could have been simple if not for the attack when all they saw in the stars were the manmade lights of steel birds steering inward to wreak complete havoc.
“Will you return to Dannen?” Arminius lowered his head, facing the fire, for the warmth to caress his face that was dimly lit under their soft shelter.
He had wrapped himself in a blanket that there was little need for him to share for his friend, peculiarly, could tell not apart heat from cold. Undisturbed by the gentle winter air, the sound of hearing the name of his home, his country, his motherland, was the only thing that troubled him.
Hugging his knees, he rested his head which shook once in response, “What is there left for me?” Julien answered, softly, “I never liked the place.”
There was a dwelling of resentment that he had made peace with, though it was difficult to remember, what a strange thing it was, what was it that made him feel so tight. Holding a stick in his hand, he poked the fire, angering it as sparks and embers danced. The ashes with their accompaniment of wind fluttered like a ballerina’s hand.
“Everything was destroyed.” Revealing a shard of the truth of his country, Julien spoke of it. “Not a single good came out of it.” His hands tensed as he added, scrunching his trousers.
Branches and firewood continued to burn at the will of them, agitating the fire as it was fed more and more until its flames roared for a single instance, burning as their hearts were too. But it was not only in one that it had been ignited, but both, together, in synchrony. Slow had become of the fire whose wings flapped as the wind changed its course, blowing outwards into the sea. The thin tarp was battered, tested of its limits before true winter would come, when its sturdiness and strength to hold its ground would be needed. Brushing overhead, the gales sped by the boys who were kept safe under the cover of trees whose shadows wavered like a white shine dashing across a windy, open meadow.
Arminius had pondered what he wanted to say, to realize his questions with answers, and suddenly, he became unafraid to ask, “Were you ever close?” It seemed clear from the foreigner’s speech, from his mannerisms to thoughts and posture, to Arminius who somehow understood what he had meant. “To that class?” He asked.
Hesitant for whether he should say or not. To keep himself on neutral turfs and maintain ambiguity. Julien loosened his hands when his doubts against any ill intentions had been cleared, and released a straining breath from his lungs. His shoulder relaxed and he sank his head further into his knees. Embarrassed by himself who had done so poorly to pretend to be what he was not, his friend, at least, understood that it was not by his choice that he was what he was yet he felt that Julien carried a certain sadness because of it.
“You could say so…but not really…” said Julien, maintaining his quiet form. “No one should ever wish to be a part of it.” He pressed his mumble against the fire, hoping for the heat alone to be the one who heard him.
“Right?” With one sufficient word, Arminius had him paused.
Raising his head, keeping away from his friend’s eyes as he turned to his side, he felt a number of questions bearing upon him. But never had it once passed Julien’s mind that they had shared a similar past, and with it, a similar thought. It was then that it became no wonder that every response he had given was understanding of him, no matter how Arminius did not seem nor act the way he was supposed to if he was what he suggested he was. As two separate strangers set apart from one another by the great northern sea, they had somehow been magnetized to meet each other there and then. It was a miracle, some might think, not a curse despite the circumstances in which they came to meet. With short smile that seemed proud, Arminius’s eyes were drawn elsewhere where it was too far to grasp. Wanting to take hold of a distant world, the future reflected on his blue and green, gazing at the sky beyond a canopy of branches. Toward the stars hidden behind the clouds that sheltered the moon laid waning. A gust of wind washed by and the whiteness grayed. Whispering his ambitions to far and wide, into the atmosphere and into the horizon, Arminius dreamt in depth. Behaving in no such way that those his age should have been, he was ready to bud and grow, but was still trapped within a cage of immaturity. Julien looked ahead, beneath the path of Arminius’s vision.
The other focused his soul on the sky as another humbly faced the land and sea. “What will you do now?” Julien broke the silence with a question of his own that had been locked away for too long.
Turning down to the sea, Arminius collected what he had seen among the heavens and wished to spread it unto the turmoil and greed that had taken a toll on his earth below. His answer had long been considered and was questioned daily by himself with the pain was reminding him that he belonged to this world and use his black memories to fuel his flames. What of the future, he inquired the past who gave no response when the present presented a terrible choice that most befitted him.
“Find peace.” Arminius gave his answer, tranquil in his mind. “I’ll find peace.” He repeated to solidify his own conviction.
For what caused peace, Julien realized the implications of such a desire. His revelation was far too different from how his friend once appeared to be. He steered away from the black and white channel of the sea and turned to Arminius who was convinced by his own powers, to be able to do anything. It was in his expression and posture, steadily facing the storm despite his angst and wounds.
Slowly and unsurely, Julien had to confirm, “You don’t mean to…”
“In order for there to be peace…” Arminius reinforced what he became sure of then.
Julien clenched his hands into fists with the tightest feeling that he had ever felt. Yet his calmness having lived through the troubles of calamity became a secondary strength. An ache had befallen him everywhere with his body and conscious mind telling him not to pursue his fated path against his spirit and soul bound together in attacking his throat which itched for him to say something. At last, he steeled himself, and all three parts of his being came to an accord. The trembling in his nerves halted and blood flowed again. Julien let the gods decide his natural course that ran towards who he was fated to meet. Fated to save. Fated to fight alongside.
In his mind, Julien saluted the heavens and prayed for their blessings before swallowing his fear to say, “I’ll help you achieve it.” To Arminius who kept his eyes on the clouds, Julien fired the ovens of his engines in his head and pronounced, stalwart in his voice that was louder than usual, “I’ll end the war with you.”
His six syllables echoed through time, beginning a journey of four decades that would forever be etched, eternally as history itself would be altered. Its ship steered from port and would never touch land for another forty-three years, and Arminius somehow knew. His smile broke when in his periphery, he saw Julien whose eyes were pinned to the ground beneath his friend, sitting beside a patch of grass and flowers which had been crushed. All that was there was a clearance. A field of empty dirt.
45Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡkFgUn2LuhK
