The Dead Hour
It's freezing as I walk the misty field, and I pull my arms closer around me
for warmth. The rolling fog lends the
empty field an eerie look in the dead hour between night and morning. I pause my directionless walk when something
catches my eye. A smooth edge. In a field of rough edges and wild lines, a
smooth edge speaks of men’s work. I
stoop down and pick it up, straining to see it clearly through the fog I’m
expelling through my nostrils. A
bullet. Despite its unassuming look and
green grass, the meadow remembers what it is.
Though years have passed, it’s still a battlefield.
The bullet between my thumb and index finger isn’t alone either. Dozens have been reaped from the field, and
still dozens more lie untouched beneath the earth. These bullets have voices - stories even - if
we’ll only listen.
When I make the effort to hear, it’s the shrieks and screams I hear
first. The bullets can only parrot the
dying words of the lives they’ve taken, and now the air is filled with it. My face grows somber with the sounds of how
these men spent their last moments. My
eyes tear when I hear the gentle moans and lonely tears.
The bullet in my hand keeps asking me to find his wife, to tell her to be
strong for the children. He’s begging me
with literally all he has left. But I
can do nothing, and I tell him so. His
voice is only a shadow of someone long dead.
The voice ignores my own though, and talks right over me, insisting that
I find her. “Tell her for me!” The
pleading continues, growing louder. “Tell
her! Tell her! Tell her I love her!!” it screams at me. I find myself dropping the bullet and
screaming back, “I can’t! I can’t!”
My voice echoes across the empty field, and I’m vaguely aware that the sun
will rise soon. My hands wipe tears from
my face and then are shoved deeply into the pockets of my coat, where they
accept the warmth gratefully. I stumble
back to my room, and find my bed. Maybe
I can try to sleep again before the sunrise is complete, and the mist and mystery
of the dead hour have vanished.
I seem to keep releasing you into fictional or at least imaginative realms with these prompts! Fair enough.
ReplyDeleteMore comments tomorrow after I've slept on this.
I read the prompt that you posted (about the trees), and it seemed pretty fictional, so I proceeded with less caution. Sometimes that's a good thing in writing - less caution. But let me know what you think tomorrow.
ReplyDelete"Less caution"? Good in writing, but always risky when dealing with teachers! :)
ReplyDeleteFortunately, you have me, and I have no more spine than a chocolate eclair, so how can I say boo? I had hoped that the fictiony sounding prompt would still lead the writer back to their own material, what their own house's walls, for example, might say.
But you're certainly not out of the ballpark here. It's an unusual topic and you don't flinch from following it as far as you possibly can. The only limitation is that you haven't been in battle--but perhaps you know people who have and perhaps you know of people killed in battle whose families are shattered. If so, fine. If not, you still do a good job of imagining and wringing the material dry, so far as I can tell (I haven't been in battle; I don't know families whose lives have been shattered.)
You might be interested in the fact that nearly all rifle shots in battle do not hit their targets--it literally takes thousands of bullets for a single one to find its mark. Even more interestingly, military research has shown that in combat, a significant percentage of combatants can not and do not and will not aim their weapons--typically, they shoot into the air. More wasted ordnance. So, yes, bullets always turn up on old battlefields, even ones as groomed and combed as, say, Gettysburg.
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ReplyDeleteYou're right, it is risky with teachers. And to be honest, when I wrote the first draft of this it was really late and I wasn't thinking much about fiction/non-fiction. Do you ever have those moments where you are so tired that you write something, feel like a genius for about a minute, then fall asleep? That was about what I did. The next morning I still liked it enough, so I shined it up and posted it.
ReplyDeleteAnyhow, you're right. I have never been in a battle. But I've been learning (and I'm still trying to learn) how to write about things I don't know, by applying what I do know to less familiar subjects. Emotions I have felt, People I do know, etc. I'm not sure how well I'm doing, but everyone has to start somewhere. :)
Funny you should mention Gettysburg. The bullet I based this idea (partially) off of is from Gettysburg.
Fall asleep while writing? No no no--that's never happened for me. Writing wakes me right up! But I have had the experience of being instantly excited by and proud of what was appearing on the screen as I typed. Other days, not so much....
ReplyDeleteHave you been to the battlefield at Gettysburg? It can be a spooky place. William Frassanito wrote a very interesting book about the photographs taken there:
http://www.amazon.com/Gettysburg-Journey-Time-William-Frassanito/dp/0939631970
Every writing teacher loves to say, 'Write about what you know'--and that's good advice and bad advice too, because sometimes a writer has to and wants to write about something she doesn't know. So I admire your plan to extrapolate from the known to the unknown--that's pretty much the name of the game in life.
No, I didn't fall asleep while writing. I was writing at a ridiculous hour, and fell asleep once I unburdened myself from the ideas in my mind. :) Happily, that night ended in pride of what I'd done. I've had plenty of opposite nights.
ReplyDeleteYes, I've been to Gettysburg. You're right, when you've heard the stories for so long and then finally see where it all took place... it's spooky. I'll have to look into that book, sounds interesting.
I've heard the saying "write what you know" for too long to just accept or dismiss it. It's a deep question with no perfect answer. But for now I'll go with my answer: writing what you don't know based on what you do know. I hope it works out.
This book by him is even better if you're interested in photography and detective work:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.amazon.com/Gettysburg-Then-Now-Touring-Battlefield/dp/1577470036/ref=pd_sim_b_1