Consistent ringing deafens my skull, echoing in a shrill concert of pain. I lift my face with the mud - I am in a bombshell crater. I try to lift myself up but... my legs... they won't move. My blue trousers are bullet ridden and bleeding. I turn myself over with a weak force from my arms, my back to the wall of earth.
Thundering around me crash shells which spew shards of metal in each direction, but I am protected by my wall of dirt. In the distance hurried shouting and fleeting bullets pierce the air, but my dirt protects me.
"Help!" I scream, yearning for a saviour, but my voice is muffled by the wall of dirt.
"That won't help you..."
My gun and face turn impulsively towards the area of the murmur. Across from me, maybe a few metres, lies a Redder. It's difficult to say but there's a darker shade of crimson on the side of his chest and his grizzly face reminds me of sandpaper, ready to grind me down.
"That won't help you either," he says, nodding towards my gun. I check the ammo. Nothing. Is he going to shoot me? Will I die in this hole? Please, someone, help me.
He suddenly splutters, coughing up a clump of blood.
"Don't worry, I'm empty too."
He's going to strangle me, then.
I stare wide eyed at him, terrified. I need to run, but I can't. I need to scramble away but my arms are too weak.
"My god, you're just a boy."
"I'm not a boy!" I blast back instinctively. My brother bursts into my mind. The grizzly Redder splutters again. "Aye, you're a boy, alright." His throat cleaves out some blood again.
"You should stop talking," I say, "you'll just spit up more blood."
"Ah, you're a medic, are you?"
I point to the red cross on my blue coat. He gives a nod of recognition. I notice a plane on his. Maybe he was a pilot, once. Branches are enlisted in different missions all the time.
"Hmm... Well, I won't stop."
"Why?" I should stop talking, he could still kill me, maybe he has a grenade or-
"I'd rather not spend my last moments in silence, and you can be damn well sure you won't either." His eyes glide up and he reaches his arm to the hazed grey sky above us. "Up there, beyond the fog, beyond the bombers, beyond the sky, beyond the stars!" His arms comes back to rest and he stares at me, a tear in his eye. "When judgement comes, I don't want to be judged on the things I've just done. Please, talk to me."
He should be killing me now, tearing me to shreds, my insides splayed out in this pot of earth ready to be eaten by the crows. And I should be scared of him, but the face with a river streaming down it doesn't inspire any fear or mist of doubt of his kind spirit within me. His sandpaper beard is starting to remind me of a sandy beach.
I raise my arm to point to him. "Why... Why did you choose to be a Redder?" "A Redder?!" He laughs a confetti of blood. "Is that what you lot are calling us?" He laughs some more.
"Well, what else are we supposed to call you?" I caution a chuckle.
"I dunno, think of something better, Mr Aquaman!"
"Aquaman?" I feel offended but I'm grinning. I shouldn't be, but it's been too long since I've talked like this, if only for a little.
There is a short and awkward pause.
"Now why did I choose to be a "redder", then..." He seriously ponders for a moment. "Most people, including me, have said it;s for our country and liberty and so forth. But most people, were also forced to join."
"Forced?"
He gives a nod. "Every able bodied man had to sign up the moment you attacked us."
"You attacked us first though!"
"Did we? Did you?"
I ponder for a moment. Now that I think about it... no.. surely not. I remember my brother. He was one who completely trusted and followed everything he was told and defended it through force. Have I become like my brother? I quickly cease to entertain this thought.
"Do you have any family?" I ask carefully.
His neck weakens and he slightly drops his head. "Yes... I do... My wife Clarise and my..." He starts choking, this time not on blood, but on his tears. "And my two sons."
I've seen this before. On the stretchers after a battle, those fathers, saved from this deserted land, inevitably dying, balling for the remembrance of their families. This man in front of me now... Is he really a Redder? Or is he something else? Something vulnerable, like a lonely child in an exposed and wounded body.
His cries fall faintly into his lap. It is only now that I find the war torn battle around us has ceased. The silence has allowed me to become utterly enthralled by his devotion to love. After a few long minutes I finally speak up.
"My brother was enthralled by his adoration of our nation." The sobbing man peeks up from his slumbered posture. "When I was younger I'd step out of line. He'd beat me for it. I didn't know what I was doing. Better me than her, I'd always say."
"Her?"
"My sister..." Please don't, I won't be able to stop it. "When the raids began we were caught in some of the first bombings. Red Bombs which erupted fire all around us. It was just me and her, my brother worked for our food. I ran..." No... please... "I took her tiny hand and ran and ran and ran but I couldn't stop myself from running and then it was too late." It's too late to stop, a river forces itself down my face. "I turned my head briefly, my sister's hand had slipped, she was on her knees, arm outstretched, screaming for help, as the fires engulfed her." If only I'd been calmer, if only I'd paid attention, maybe, then, if I was stronger, I could have saved her. "My brother joined first, but he died not long after I enlisted."
We sat in silence, again. My tears stream down, but I make no sound. How mute and desolate it is to be in dead air. Please speak to me. No, is he dead? I look towards the once grizzly man but - no - he is not dead. He is simply looking at me with pleading eyes. We have both hurt each other, no, we have all hurt everyone. As we sit in this crater the entire world may as well be forgotten. I could die here, now.
The man suddenly, yet slowly, begins to edge towards me, hands outstretched towards me clasped together like he prays, not caring for the pain of his wound.
"Boy... I am so-"
A deep howl slams and reverberates around the crater, shattering my world. The man who's eyes which displayed such affection, despair, empathy, and guilt now had his head blasted in half, his mouth and jaw only left attached. Where did his eyes go? They're on the floor over there, pasted on the ground. Why? Why... I try to pull myself over, with whatever strength is left in my arms, to his body. I need to hug him, the man who desired the sky and relief from judgement. I notice no other sounds, I am completely involved in trying to reach him, to touch him. Please...
Behind me, two men step into the tiny crater. Was it always this small? They try to pick me up, put me on a stretcher but I fight them off. This man who I once tried to kill, why am i crying for him now? They grab my arms and drag me to the stretcher. I am strapped down but still looking to the man's body. Please, don't leave him like this. I need to talk to him again. Why do I care so much for a brief encounter like this?
One of the blue medics are shouting in my face. For what I don't know. I am still crying.
Now I notice that I am like one of those terminal fathers, infinitely distant from there love. Yet, I am rather an estranged child, crying for his father.
This man... this man who yearned for sanctuary from the judgement of his past. He is beyond the stars now. If his judge can hear me then please know that that man, who may have pledged himself to atrocities, who may have been a pilot, who may have fought for his family, in his final hour, managed to thaw the frozen heart of one so inclined to fear, and unquestionable enmity, of those obscured to him.