The Unknown Soldier

A/N: I wrote this a while ago... cheers anyway.

           It was a small mercy, sitting here, alone. It was an answer to a quiet prayer whispered in the dark amongst her tear-choked cries, runny nose, and listening to the sound of her own heart breaking in the silent void of the hours past midnight. It was a small mercy, but it was a mercy all the same. She would take what she could get right now and not scorn the gracious Hand that gave it. He had brought her this far, and He would not abandon her now. So she would muffle her sobs in her pillow at night, afraid to wake her sister or brother-in-law, and deal with the crushing loss that threatened to drown her in the unending grief. Yes, sitting alone was a small mercy. The sun still shone, the sky was still blue, grass was still green. She was still breathing, her heart still beating, and somehow, her life would still be worth living.

            However, she was not alone. Arlington was a place filled with hundreds and thousands of men and women. Their memories honored with white tombstones placed in precise rows, a picturesque scene of military tribute, compassion, courage, and bravery. And at the top of the hill, a lone figure, guarding the memory of those who were not so lucky as to return to this soil, to rest under the protection of the silent guard. Ashes to ashes; dust to dust.

            If she closed her swollen eyes, she could almost hear their voices whispering on the wind. It was insane, of course, but she could question her mental stability at a time when her heart was on more solid ground. Right now, shifting sand was not her ally, and she placed her hands palm down on the concrete steps to reassure herself she was still sitting upright. The rough, gritty texture felt like sandpaper on her fingertips. Somehow, it grounded her in reality. Closing her eyes, she tipped her head up toward the sun, feeling the warmth contrast the ice within her soul.

            She sat on the vacant steps before the metal chains directly in front of the lone figure. It was the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, and next to it was its guard. The man moved every twenty-one seconds, taking twenty-one steps, pausing twenty-one seconds, and then continuing on. The rhythm became a song within her broken soul.

            It was getting late in the afternoon, and she was surprised she was still the only one waiting on the steps at the tomb. A small mercy, still. She childishly wiped her nose on her sleeve and dried her eyes with her fingers.

            “I-I know you’re not supposed to say anything. I know you’re very disciplined and stuff. But I hope you don’t mind if I talk aloud for a lil bit. See, within the past forty-eight hours, my life has kinda been turned upside down. I was getting married in a couple months. My fiancé was in the Marine Corps. He uh, well, he... um, was KIA... and I can’t even have a burial for him since they can’t even find him.” She stood from her seat on the stairs and stuck her hands in her jeans pockets.

“This’ll be his tomb now, too, huh? Another name to inscribe upon the unseen list of those never coming home again. Only to live on in the hearts of the family he was a part of and the soul of the Nation he died for.” She sniffled and wiped her nose on her sleeve again. It wasn’t like the man actually heard her. He continued to move every twenty-one seconds. “Is it wrong to not want to accept the flag they’ll be giving me? I don’t know if I can. I'd rather have him back. A flag for a life hardly seems right... and those yellow ribbons hanging about my home will never be tugged down by Daniel’s hand. I’ll never get to say 'I do' to the love of my life.”

She collapsed on the stairs, muting her tears in the crook of her elbow. She inhaled a long, slow breath a few minutes later. She collected herself and watched as the soldier went through another one of his patterns and waited until he was facing her.  Then the broken woman said directly to him, “Thank you. For protecting his memory. He’ll rest here with the others.”

And then she took off her engagement ring from her left hand ring finger, kissed it in direct sight of the Guard, and bent down to place it on the ground on just the other side of the chain barrier. As the soldier began to move again through another pattern, she got up, stared at the tomb and said with tears in her voice, “I love you. Good bye, Daniel.”

As the young woman turned away and left The Tomb of the Unknowns, a single tear traced its path down the left side of the Guardian’s face.

 

Ruler's Mentality

Kings sit on their piles of gold,
As the fiddlers sung in tales of old,
Enjoying the wealth of peoples’ toil
While they never set finger in soil.

People left vulnerable due to unjust law,
No longer protected. History has seen the flaw:
Changing mentalities evolve to be,
Not “what I do for you” but “what you do for me.”

And while these Kings sit on unearned spoils
Claiming illegitimate privileges of Royals,
The People, caged, have grown passive and tame
And stamp out the cry of the rebellious flame.


And yet, some still yearn to be free.
Some still remember law as outlined liberty.

Red

Red. The stones flowed with it. The sky looked as if it bled. The setting sun and the rising moon glowed with the color of shedding blood. It poured onto the streets, seeping in shoes, still warm as when it left the veins. Sticky, it smelled like copper and metal, attracting great swarms of black flies and birds and animals of prey. And yet, the greatest predators still fought in the streets of the once great, green, whole town.

And across the world, they watched as the streets filled with blood.

The crying, the shrieking, the moaning filled the air, shattering souls. Bodies added to the count; innocent life liquid painting the earth red, soaking into the grass and calling out to God as Abel’s did when his brother slew him. A living nightmare, a living Hell, where every demon of every dream came awake to torment. Fire burned the skin; darkness warped the unprotected minds as children huddled in corners behind their protectors. But how does one protect against that which one cannot see?

And the world watches as the streets are bathed in blood.

Red is the color of war. And in a dying world, fighting against physical manifestations of principalities and powers of an unseen world, the very air is red. In the fading light of a person’s world, about to die, about to be cut down where she stands, the last color she sees is the red dripping from a glistening blade coming toward her neck. The saint prays, hears the cries of ten thousand souls before her as if the very fabric between the worlds has been severed, and she can see the altar before her. She watches as the blood comes to kill her.  She wonders briefly about the name of the one who had gone before her, the one whose blood is about to mingle with her own.  She commends her spirit to God, and without closing her eyes, watches for her death to arrive.

The streets are flooded with blood.
With taken life.
With red.


*~*~*~*~*~*

When the Lamb broke the fifth seal, I saw underneath the altar the souls of those who had been slain because of the word of God, and because of the testimony which they had maintained; and they cried out with a loud voice, saying, "How long, O Lord, holy and true, will You refrain from judging and avenging our blood on those who dwell on the earth?" And there was given to each of them a white robe; and they were told that they should rest for a little while longer, until the number of their fellow servants and their brethren who were to be killed even as they had been, would be completed also.   Revelation 6:9-11