Peace of my Soul

My name is Ensign Eric Harden and today I am going to war. Today is the last day before I leave for Honolulu Hawaii for my first posting aboard the USS Arizona. There are others with me who are heading to the same place or somewhere like it but I do not know their names. I can see their faces and see the same facsimile of excitement and nervousness written across their features. Many are dressed like me in pressed blue and white; the uniform of a sailor. Some are wearing their government issued hats as instructed and some are worn cocked to the side as a testament to the young man's bravado possessed by many.

As I wait in line for the photographer my thoughts turn to her, and my hopes that she remembers me fondly while I'm away. I hope that she waits for me and thinks of me as I know I will think of her in the belly of the ship bound for the Pacific. Soon it is my turn to have my picture taken and I straighten my back and turn my head slightly to the right. The man behind the camera tells me to "smile for the birdie" but it for Corinne that I turn up the corner of my mouth. One hand clutches my hat at my waist and the other runs it's thumb across the engraved surface of a heart shaped locket nestled deep in the pocket of my pants. As the flash takes my vision momentarily, the words of the engraving echo across my thoughts - "For Corinne, yours always - Eric".

I stand by the dock in a press of uniformed bodies waiting to say goodbye to dry land and loved ones. My eyes scan the crowd for my beloved Corinne and in the early morning sunlight I catch sight of her. I step out of line and approach as far as the barriers will allow and take her hands in mine. Her strawberry blonde hair is cut short but frames her beautiful face like a halo with a few wild curls back lit with sunlight looking like licks of flame. Her green blue eyes glitter like the nearby water and threaten to drown me. The golden locket dances just below the open collar of her dress and fills me with a swelling of pride and confidence. Her crimson lips make the shapes and sounds necessary to tell me that she will wait for me, that she loves me and I taste their truth with my own as the first horn sounds.

A sudden press of blue and white forces my departure and I hold her eyes with mine as I board the ship and sail to war. As we pass below deck and the hatch closes behind us, I turn my thoughts to the months ahead and am thankful for the nervous energy in the hold around me. There is no shame in the tremor working it's way up from my hands and into my heart. I lean my head back against the hull behind me and listen to someone inquire if another thought we would be home in time for Christmas and I close my eyes. In my mind's eye sees the golden heart shaped locket swaying against the pale backdrop of Corinne's chest, back and forth until I fall asleep.

The deck swells and ebbs gently beneath my feet as I complete my last round of patrol before I am to be relieved. Even in early December the air is not cold, but cool with the promise of a hot day to follow. The USS Arizona has been my home for the past few months and I know it almost as well as the family farm back home. The open deck reminds me of an open pasture and the steel rails surround me like barbed wire fencing. The other sailors on board are my brothers working alongside of me in the heat of the day and laying in bunk beds next to me in the cool of the night.

It is nearly morning when my relief comes to me and we exchange salutes and casual comments before I head below deck. The hum of the ship has become so commonplace to me that I do not notice it as I undress and climb into my bunk. The gentle surf of the waters encompassing Pearl Harbor provide an almost comforting rocking motion devoid of the turbulence of open sea travel. I lift my arms beneath my head and stare up at the bottom of the bunk above me and think of Corinne. Even though I write to her regularly I cannot wait to see her when she comes to visit before Christmas. The next few weeks cannot pass fast enough, I think to myself as I pass from wakefulness to sleep.

My eyes open to complete darkness. Not the lightless dark of a cave or confined space, but a void without even the concept of edge or boundary. I want reach for where I know the edge of my bunk to be but I feel nothing. I try to sit up but I realize that I am upright but there is no solid ground beneath my feet nor equilibrium change to accompany my orientation. I peer into the void before me and see nothing when suddenly a crease appears in the space beyond. The sound of muffled voices, hushed tones and a quiet sobbing rush into and fill the liquid dark around me like a vessel. Dressed all in black, with a veil of gauze over her face is my beloved Corinne.

The last time I saw her she was dressed in a corona of sunlight but there is no accompanying light this time. Lines crease her porcelain skin and her hair is tight against her head. Her eyes that once appeared to me as the shimmering sea are dark - rimmed in wet, pink agitation and sunken in to her cheeks. She bites her pale lips to stifle the sobbing and my field of vision shakes with her. She says good bye to me, and I want to call out to her but no sound escapes me. Her eyes catch mine but her reaction is not one of relief and recognition, only remorse and she turns away. I stand in place as the world beyond the crease spins and falls away and slams closed with a resounding snap. The echoes of her cries last for seconds after the sights are gone, but reverberate around me far longer.

Detached from everything I feel no sense of time beyond the concepts of my memory. I try to hold on to what I remember of Corinne before I left for the war, how she looked on the day I departed for Hawaii and how her lips tasted. I try not to dwell on the tortured visage that appeared to me in what must be a dream within this dream. I comically wonder how much trouble I will be in for oversleeping and missing my posted assignments on board the ship. 'How long has it been now?' The question of 'When' has no meaning to me, but as I stand in my purgatory a line of weak light bisects the void before me. The face that greets me is not that of my beloved Corinne but a man of indeterminate age. Dirt and hair obscure much of his features and stain the gnarled hands that wave in the air before me - seeming to reach out to me and my prison. I want to move out of his way so that his filthy hands do not tarnish my uniform but I am rooted in place and his actions fall short. His crooked teeth and leer fade out of sight as the window out shuts and I am left alone once again. From beyond the window, I am greeted by the visage of this man coalescing out of the emptiness. His speech is odd but I understand him, and am led to believe that I am being sold into slavery to another. How much he asks another and my point of view is made to swing around and focus on another. In the disorientating swirl I see a barred window, letters and a myriad of shapes and colors beyond. 'Where am I?' 'What world is this?' The men speak again and I hear the words I had engraved on the locket I gave to Corinne - how do they know them? I hear the word 'Sold' and I am saved from the rest by mute darkness.

There is a crack in the boundless eternity around me and through it I hear Armageddon with out. The crush of concrete and glass, sirens, screams, explosions, thunder.. a world is ending outside of my shell of nothing. The crease that I have come to call the Window closes with a crash and I know nothing but the inky black peace of void. This plane of darkness is pierced by a beam of light from outside once again reflexively I will my hand to rise but it does not and the light does not harm me. A sharp release of air pierces the soundlessness and the figure before me fills my field of view with it's body and my mind with dread. Dressed from head to toe in a bulky yellow suit, the figure before me appraises me through a monstrous mask.

The clicking of a mechanical device snaps and crackles around me, seeming to originate from the device in the individuals hand. Over it's shoulder I see several other beings moving amongst the ruins of a building. White lights shine down from on high like lamps but I cannot determine their origin. A red gloved hand waves over my prison, and I want to wave back but I cannot. I am sealed into what appears to be a plastic bag and deposited out of sight and out of reality as has become my norm.

Light returns once again and I find myself suspended over a black surface. Figures in a variety of shapes and sizes begin to filter into view. An opaque dome is placed over my already impenetrable containment, but my attention is drawn elsewhere. Just in my line of sight and cast in shades of gray and white is my beloved Corinne. I see her as plain as the day I left her on the dock - short hair elaborately coiffed and styled, bright eyes and dark lips wrapped around a lovely smile. I call to her but my lips do not move, my hands will not reach out to her. I can only dart my gaze around to take in sights which may as well be a mile away. I look around and notice a plaque beneath me.

I read it as follows, "His name was Ensign Eric Harden, taken on the day he left for war bound for Honolulu, Hawaii and what would be his final posting aboard the USS Arizona. There were others with him but we do not know their names or faces. We imagine many were dressed like him in the blues and whites of America's Navy. Eric Harden like many young men and women were killed tragically during the Second of America's Great World Wars. This locket containing a picture of him and Corinne Greeling of New York was recovered in the ruins of New York City after the end of the Third American Great World War and has been brought here as a relic of early Terran life." Below it reads, "This relic and many others on display on the space craft Tera-2 stand as reminders of where we have come from. For Earth, yours always - Humanity."