Gone the Tides of Earth

Late midseason was crisp cold and fresh snowfall blanketed the mountains. All along the roads were levelled by a few inches of powder, remnants of disowned sleeping bags and tents covered ivory like alpine miniatures. Shovelled walkways led the way from the cabin back to the outhouse, to the cellars and there was another that connected with the outpost on the distant side of camp. Trailing them was customary only for the preparations of meals, routine checks, to use the toilet or rarely in the odd case that fresh stationery or candles were required. It gave one a false sense of secondary soldiering in the habituation dugouts that accommodated personnel behind frontline trenches.

As winter drew on at the post the elements became our true challenge, solitude their suitor grew to be a test of will. External communication was limited to a baseline transmission, on an oldest serviceable Hellenic telegraph, biweekly from the city: Situation in north stable, south favourable. No change in status of duty. Will give new update two weeks henceforth. Every couple weeks thus, we received the very same message nigh on time, like clockwork: ... .. - ..- .- - .. --- -. / .. -. / -. --- .-. - .... / ... - .- -... .-.. . --..-- / ... --- ..- - .... / ..-. .- ...- --- ..- .-. .- -... .-.. . .-.-.- / -. --- / -.-. .... .- -. --. . / .. -. / ... - .- - ..- ... / --- ..-. / -.. ..- - -.-- .-.-.- / .-- .. .-.. .-.. / --. .. ...- . / -. . .-- / ..- .--. -.. .- - . / - .-- --- / .-- . . -.- ... / .... . -. -.-. . ..-. --- .-. - .... .-.-.-. Happily, one such occasion the text had translated more personably, offering location of the sender: Situation in north stable, south favourable. No change in status of duty. Will give new update two weeks henceforth – Athens Telecommunications. Without fail each relevant afternoon Cian would return from the outpost, telling us we’d gotten mail delivery and that’d he’d deciphered a transcript: ... .. - ..- .- - .. --- -. / .. -. / -. --- .-. - .... / ... - .- -... .-.. . --..-- / ... --- ..- - .... / ..-. .- ...- --- ..- .-. .- -... .-.. . .-.-.- / -. --- / -.-. .... .- -. --. . / .. -. / ... - .- - ..- ... / --- ..-. / -.. ..- - -.-- .-.-.- / .-- .. .-.. .-.. / --. .. ...- . / -. . .-- / ..- .--. -.. .- - . / - .-- --- / .-- . . -.- ... / .... . -. -.-. . ..-. --- .-. - .... .-.-.-. And so it goes.

In February, the wintry weather suddenly broke and rain soon fell round the clock. Snowmelt flooded the forest, runoff spilling down the mountain and the embankments of the road which created the sheltering of an icy river. By midmonth we were able to go out and walk the perimeters of camp, along the road as far where it became slippery where it sloped. Everyday for an hour or so I would pace, stare out at a distortion of peaks disrupting the lower valleys, wondering when the show would start again. It was a lousy way to feel yet, given the conditional means of our solitary confinement, any business or distraction was to be welcomed. Staring out I would stand there grimly, gazing, then nudge myself to fix those thoughts before continuing back toward the post and mates. Through these days in early spring Alci languished in the warmth of the log cabin and Cian would take a rifle down the scarp, combing the paddocks for early-season pheasants.

Early on I could not have predicted, watch at the post ended up being nothing foreseeable. Natural as foreign signups, respectively we had each been assigned the station upon conscription. The provisional durability of it all was alright so that we did not want for anything, but the situation was such that life felt to be oppressed. If we had not been in service stay at the post in the mountains, allotting retainment of sufficient non-perishable foodstuffs, hunting equipment, the gas and insurance might’ve felt a blessing. Being in the military it felt, as each day passed, that we were more doomed than the last. Often I’d sit up in bed after they drifted off; legs crossed, lids shut, I disappeared behind my eyes, allowing myself to breathe until a full dissolution occurred - I could’ve stayed.

The heat of the stove met me once I opened the door, I stomped my boots then muscled them off. Curtly I set them on a rack below the hooks, brushing the snow onto the doormat. Due the warmth it was already turning to melt, I took it by holding both ends and flapping sent the slush out the threshold. Alci watched me from afar on his bed.

‘Good lad, Henry,’ he said. ‘Practical boy - prudent man.’

‘Get out of bed, you lazy swine.’

‘It is my siesta.’

‘Every day - all hours?’

‘Winter is time for rest, friend.’

‘There’s still work to do.’

‘Always work to be done. I’m afraid it’s fruitless. One must consciously mitigate.’

‘Perhaps we’re made to suffer.’

‘That is not how I plan to endure.’

‘Well.’

‘Canadian, how certain are you of Creator?’

‘Pretty certain.’

‘And you’re sure he’s ordained for us suffering?’

‘Maybe it comes via appointment physical existence.’

‘So all there is for us is to begrudgingly accept anointed pain and anguish?’

‘No, not grudgingly.’

‘No thank you. Pass, Henry. Makes no sense.’

‘Maybe that will have to be answered for.’

‘You mean that one day God must need answer to us for it?’

‘Or perhaps we don’t understand a grander scheme, cannot yet realize aspects of some bigger picture.’

‘Pass, again. Someday He must answer to us for the suffering. This very much I’d like, sounds lots better.’ He carried on in a garrulous manner, muttering scornful Greek. The rant ran while I hung up my jacket, and then traversed the room, settling in at the desk. Only then did it simmer, he was sideways looking at me from his pillows up on the wall. Alci did not really care much, was only playing at being upset over my quasi-neglectful dismissal: ‘It’s like you don’t even hear the words I speak.’

‘That’s because I ignore you.’

‘Cold Henry,’ he said, ‘like my ex-lover’s heart. Cold like the snow you and the hairy man like so well. Go make love to it. Hump it, I’ll keep the fireplace.’

‘Hump yourself, Charlie,’ I said.

‘This does not work so smoothly, I have tried.’

‘Be quiet, let me work.’

‘Okay, you work. A writer must make up beautiful dreams. Like a sprinter must runs, seamstress sews, mut will shag bitch. Write to your longing content, Henry Owen. Become not distracted by topical ruminations of yours lovely fiancé.’

Stymied I laughed him off, sometimes that was all you could do. Such it was that the solitude and conditions fell toughest on him. There really were not many jobs to go around, we only tried willing him to it for something; it would not do to wallow on what could be. Truth being he was younger, understood this less than might be expected otherwise. Be it Hellas was my home and I were greener I’d surely be sick about all of it. It was an impractical business and, branded in the same, he had a stamp like the rest of us. Why was war when Tirana rested meekly, suing peace yet only ceded for the safety of its kindred people. When life did romp in mother’s maiden Albania, summers spent in father’s Thessaly, never really away from home in either place. When it was war that did not belong, invented by others - who were they anymore? Prior that love and peace reined, university riven, friends and familia scattered, now blood, pain and anguish, an end in sight: none. Herein entrapped in a casement between battles, stuck at a lifeless mountain tending the beacon of a match that might never resume - nor even end.

‘How do you feel about Cian?’ Alci was no longer looking at me, rather staring up into the rafters. ‘I like him. He tries hard.’ So did we all.

Later that afternoon while writing, as Alci was resting eyes Cian came in the door. The wind howling behind him, he was moving faster than usual and entered with a particularly rambunctious candour. After hanging up his coat, taking off his boots he turned and, facing us, smiled exuberantly. The fresh lively look made him appear about five years younger; Alci and I waited on his word, but he just smiled.

‘A first episode of cabin fever has occurred. See that Cian has gone stir crazy,’ Alci offered. ‘Go and get the guns from the racks, Henry, for sake keeping.’

‘It’s happening indeed, lads.’ Cian slammed an open palm onto the wall beside the threshold, fingers spread far as they could. ‘They’re coming.’

‘Yes, okay, good friend,’ Alci said agreeably. ‘Now let us have the guns so that no one gets hurt. Breathe well to calm yourself, dear friend.’

‘It’s over and done with. We’re through here. They’re coming to get us.’ His hand slid off the wall, he sauntered in with self-assured swagger. ‘We’re getting out of this place now and forever. Our work here is finished.’

Alci was partly propped up in bed, reminiscent of a child brimming with the excitement of anticipating the tag in duck-duck-goose. Next I was up on my feet, standing from the desk without really intending to do so. Cian’s eyes were big, bloodshot, moistened, ‘It’s over, lads, really.’

‘Don’t screw with us, should you lie.’

‘What’s the word?’

‘The brass knows there isn’t any show in places like this during the season, they’ve got the annual festivities coming soon that they need manning for. A service-call has gone out for all mobile units, transient and provisional conscripts to come together to celebrate multicultural unity. That means us and the ladies if they’re still cast together.’

Cian crossed the room decisively, plopping onto his mattress. Alci was sitting up, utilizing the wall behind as a headrest, in disbelief. I was back sitting in the chair, feeling a shock of energy surging within. Cian’s eyes scanned the room, lit up, drinking in the moment, our sudden lack for words.

When I gazed up I saw Alcibiades, by default, there first. Staring up at the ceiling and slack-jawed, neck craned back, his eyes were glazed and lips spread in the potential entirety of a smile. He sat there a moment, then reined in the head upon his shoulders and leapt afoot. Walking over to the door he swung it open, draft flying in, pausing before heading out to put his boots on.

‘Where are you going?’ Cian asked him.

‘I must say goodbye to the place.’ His word was earnest and emotion genuine, Alci could beam glowingly without smiling. ‘Some of the prime fineness of my youth got squandered here. Don’t worry friends, for I will surely return to you soon.’ As he disappeared the door snapped shut, closing behind with a sharp rattle. ‘Apologies for my prattle, kind and good Henry.’

-

Waiting up in bed some time after dusk ghosts played out their usual dance in my mind. Shadows shaded, jaded silhouettes of all the old bled colours and ones that never even existed leapt into multicolour. A gasp between and the world wept in sadness, whimpered and then fell silent. The resonant pulses of my diaphragm echoed surrender. Hoisted sails between each beat. You fight until you breathe again.

Alci was asleep soundlessly, Cian busied himself packing supplies from the desk and foyer into a rucksack on the chair. Earlier I had finished preparations and Alcibiades had done so as well. There was little now but to wait, sleep would not come on such an occasion and might as well not strain against it. Soon enough Cian noticed my eyes open, coming closer placed down the pack and settled atop the wooden chair.

‘Still up?’

‘You bet.’

‘Me too. I won’t sleep tonight.’

‘Me neither.’

‘Still feeling better?’

‘Yeah. Seems to have been a coveted moment. Breakthrough of mine spirit.’

‘That is swell, mate. What you want to say, before laddie got back?’

‘I was caught in a moment of passion. I’m better with ease now.’

‘Alright, so be it, only you were positively riled. I’m sure it matters to say - have it out at least for me to hear.’

‘It’s nothing.’

‘Come now. Tell true.’ Quietly, he waited.

‘When the clarity broke through earlier, I got caught up in a way of thinking about what I should’ve said back then to the people around me, at its worst,’ I started, methodically. ‘If I were to have been honest, I would have told them all about how that one night I’d lost everything. The world had broken apart, life rented from under my feet, roughly seven hours later I was not sure if I were alive or dead. Every day after I was not there yet for all those years fought hard as I could. An emotions-capable automaton, stuck in a mode of autopilot, watching my self, feeling myself think, but not ever feeling anything. If they could have known for an hour the pain, searing anguish of what it was like to suffer as was. There are things you forget and move on from, although this if in feeling they had garnered insight for a moment would never be forgotten. When you are living dead it is easy to forget that people are actually alive. Just that it is only sentiment now, eight years that it’s been. I miss them and for all my heart wish we had the strength to tell those we love what matters most, while it still broods. For I regret that they never knew the struggle it was for me to stay alive, nor the energy devoted there, to survival, living a truth so horrible and the fear that inspired all of it. True I think mental illness is perhaps the worst purgatory that exists. Wretched and wrought, writhing in torment befell, such that I did. Wondering why so difficult to wade the shallows off our isle unto another, that in self-sabotage and treachery we cling to the same rocks? Peace is fluid, offers allowance, tolerance, and further it transmutes; for many years I could not dip my feet in those waters, trapped in a darkness that solidifies like concrete. Yet true faith gleans from the places we cannot see. And so, we must learn to accept and move on.’