“We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow
Loved and were loved, and now we lie”
Fifty years on and it still seems as if it were only yesterday, yesterday that my George sat in that truck with his alliances. I can still hear those goodbyes and raucous cheers of those on board; it drove too quickly, he was gone – they all were... or would be. Those men with different backgrounds and different secrets all with one thing in common: they were about to fight for ‘their country’, be accommodated in hell - unless blessed with death and learn how to be a man, but for what? – The Great War.
Awake. My eyes closed tighter as the breeze ran through my hair. “Bloody hell Liv, close that damn door” I shouted groggily, my Olivia, a beauty, but new to the housewife malarkey. Whenever I wake up I never open my eyes until truly necessary; there is just something so peaceful about lying still with only your thoughts. I turned my head and sighed heavily as the rays of gold from the sky flooded my eyelids red through the window pane. Mmm I could feel Liv’s silky hair against my rough face - so the dozy cow had just forgotten and hadn’t drawn the curtains properly. As I lay with my darling wife I counted my blessings. When we slept together I dare not move until the day breaks and the birds sing; I know you’re there beside me and we’ll be together forever, just you and me Liv.
My George. George was in many ways the perfect husband; he loved me and would have given me anything I desired. I loved him, with my whole heart, all nine million acres of love inside my slender frame. George, I miss you so much that my heart is still aching: battered, bruised and torn! You took my heart with you that dark despairing day you left; you stole it. Every day you’re the first thing I think of when I wake up and the last thing when I fall asleep. It varies what I think about but it is most often the security and love you gave me that gets me through each day. When you were near, I felt complete, but now that you left, I feel as if the curtains fallen and the audience have left. The show is over. I needed you to function and you left, you selfish benevolent man. Nothing or nobody can make me feel alive the way you did and do – and you knew it.
My eyes opened as the day dawned; the day had begun... But so did my life as this was not just any uniform, this was a soldier’s strip.
Where was I? I glanced down and saw a uniform on me. Bottle green, stiff and smeared with a garnet liquid... Fear overcame as I saw body parts that were not my own up to my waist. I turned my head and saw only miles of bottle green. An ocean of bottle green, but I was a mere wave. A garden, but I was a single blade of grass. I couldn’t get up. My body wouldn’t let me. I stared blankly at it. I would have done anything in the world to close my eyes and wake up again to my wife in our warm bed – instead I was looking into a dead man’s eye socket, i had never known blood to be purple. So revolting, repulsive and repellent... I retched as I looked down and saw the remains of his brain on my chest, his fountain of knowledge now a garnish on my discoloured costume.
“Conscription, compulsory, certified.” The words leaped out of the letter and struck my face. I’d welter without George, He was my sun. His face startled me; his expression was torn, almost pained, and so fiercely beautiful that the ache to hold him flared stronger than I had ever felt. My goodbye stuck in my throat. He raised his hand, hesitant, conflict raging in his eyes, and then swiftly brushed the length of my cheekbone with his fingertips. His hand was icy as that winter’s day, but the trail his fingers left on my skin was alarmingly warm — like I’d been burned, but didn’t feel the pain of it yet. He was my sun.
Paralysed – how? Location – where? Shot – by whom? Questions that revolved in my head. I wanted answers, I wanted to turn to the back page and cheat. I felt cheated and indignant; of all the questions I wanted to know why. Why me? I hated fighting, I’d only ever fight with my Olivia and that was only ever over my smoking. Where the hell was I? Why couldn’t I remember? I thought so hard I could feel a vein pulse in my cranium.” I was a salesman for god’s sake why the drastic career choice George?” I bellowed in my head, “At least if I couldn’t sell and made a mistake I’d still have legs.” I gloated back. I needed to get a grip and find a way out – fast.
I hate you; what you’ve done to me. Twelve hours was when it first kicked in, that I might not ever see you again, oh how I howled. I was quailed with the thought of you gone, to think of life without you. I can’t eat, sleep or think without you being there: those ocean eyes and that cheeky smile. You usually have your beaker of tea (which you treated like your chalice) and that wretched pipe of yours. Sometimes, if I make believe for long enough I can hear your laugh. That chuckle, like a roar of thunder that electrocuted my soul. Oh George my darling how I hate you, how could you do this to me?! You stood in front of everyone we knew and vowed to love me and stand by me. You have had faults, but I will never believe that you are a liar.
So cold. My face felt petrified as the chill crept up – maybe that was an upside to being paralysed; only my face felt it. It was eccentric to think that my hands that once belonged to me were no longer mine; they were parasites that clung to my futile body. Pathetic. I wanted Olivia to hold me and make me feel needed again; I wanted a reason to live. I spat at tears that gushed down my face, they gave me warmth but did not comfort.
I felt like the only person in the world, but I was surrounded by bodies.
I feel like the only person in the world George, they all stare at me and whisper, their pity and condolences pierce my skin but nothing, no feeling. I wrote to you every day, sometimes i still do.
“To my dearest George,
I'm simply unable to cease this feeling of misery as my desire for you deepens. I need you. This parchment is smeared from the never ending tears that fall from my eyes. I cannot see through my eyes are so and yes I know that I am a wreck and pathetic but could ever write back? As I write, I say the words aloud, so that you might hear them. My darling I beg of you, please think of me at once a day, and before you go to bed tell me that you love and need me. Just those words please, I know they will reach me. I’ll write a thousand letters pray a thousand times to just see my name in your handwriting. I really lust for your presence. I want to have you home and for you to cradle me. Place my hair behind my ear and whisper those three robust words to me, the words that send shivers down my body as your whisper tickles my ear. I’m trying so hard to be realistic though. It is in all honesty the most unfeasible task i have had to perform, please just write.”
Some would say that your memory is the most valuable thing you own. When you’re born you don’t remember anything; nobody’s face, nothing. It is better that way - death can’t haunt you. I envy the elderly, sat in their chairs watching their egg timers expire, counting the seconds on the clock ‘til it’s time. The ones with no memory, they are God’s chosen ones. They could be serial killers or criminals but they don’t know that. They can pretend. What could I possible pretend? I was a cripple and of no use to anyone, I’ve let my perfect wife down. I watched as my fingers coordinated with the crimson blemishes that surrounded me .It is so cold, “Aint no sunshine when she’s gone.”
“To my devoted and loved husband George,
Please come back to me. There's not a shred of doubt inside me, I know I want to spend the rest of my life with you and longer, I will find a way to make it possible - we will. I can't wait until I can see you again and I can never let go I never want to be alone again. Not even for a second will I take you for granted I’m so lucky. I cannot cease until I will see you again and I never have to let go, jokes, your beautiful day dreamy speeches that i memorise and all the words you say to make me beam; you are my sun.”
My memory, my library and my tale was finished. The Human mind is a powerful thing; it has the ability to love and to seize power. Why couldn’t soldiers love, why did they only have an objective to fight?
Maybe my memory left me for a chance to love, but what good was that? How could I have the ability to do courtship if I didn’t even have the ability to urinate by myself?
I think I’ve gone mad. This is so surreal, so fantasised. A nightmare? A solar eclipse? An ice age? I’m so cold.
“You are my sunshine, my only sunshine,
You make me happy, when skies are grey,
You’ll never know dear, how much I love you,
Please don’t take, my sunshine, away”
It had started to snow and it covered all my surroundings. Ironic, how something so simple could disguise the revolting ugly parts of human anatomy scattered to the four winds, painting the soil scarlet. The white bliss was beautiful and made me feel like I had been saved. They were my clouds, my entrance to heaven. I was at peace now.
Fifty years. No reply.
Never forget me. George, never forget one moment we had. We all forget: Alzihemers. Amnesia. Age. There are many things we all wish to forget. No matter how hard I’ve tried, I will never forget you. I will always be yours.
Olivia.
Synopsis: This is a story about a soldier who, wounded and paralysed, wakes up on the battlefield with amnesia. He does not remember anything and simply states his thoughts as the story goes on; as the cold creeps in he starts to become scared and loses his mentality as he dies due to pneumonia.
The second speaker is an elderly woman who looks back on how her husband left her for war, until later in the text it is not linked that the Amnesiac soldier is/ was her husband. It is also her thoughts as it proves that she cannot move on from her husband .
The title is inferred that to her it is always sunset because it will not be night and a new day as she is fixated by her husband and his disappearance. The soldier wakes up when the sunrises and the sunset is a metaphor for his death as he lasts a single day from when he woke up. However, because he is an amnesiac this day feels like his entire life as his wife becomes only a memory.
Bibliography
“In Flanders Field” stanza two: James McRae
“Aint no sunshine” song verse: Bill Withers
“You are my sunshine” popular war time song
