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You’re going to die
in your best friend’s arms.
And you play along because it’s funny, because it’s written down,
you’ve memorized it,
it’s all you know.
- “Planet of Love”, Richard Siken
For a moment, he hears nothing. It’s a terrifying sound when you’re dying.
He remembers his grandfather as he laid on the old canopy bed, one his great-grandfather had made his great-grandmother many-a-year ago in an act of love. Now, it reeked of a musky and slow decay, clinging to the old cream sheets and lumpy flannel pillows. Not even his mum’s flowery perfume dared to try and mask something as concrete as death.
His grandfather had reached for him. He couldn’t quite make it, so he’d grabbed hold and held the bruised and wrinkled hand close as he whispered words of comfort. There was no reply and there hadn’t been for the last few hours at least. His hearing is gone, his mum had said, his vision will follow close behind. It’s the natural order when death nears.
He whimpers.
“Talk to me.” He looks at Will, his image swimming before him, darkness creeping around the edges until all he’s at the end of a very long tunnel. His eyelids are now as heavy as stone but he doesn’t dare take his gaze off of Will just yet in fear he’ll disappear. “Tell me you know the way.”
For an eternity, he’s left in the horrible quiet again. Was this it? Would he truly never get to hear Will’s voice again, nor his mum’s or Joe’s?
Death was plucking his senses one by one like petals in a cruel game he was forced to play.
“I know the way. I’m going to head Southeast until I hit Écoust.”
His eyes slip shut. The relief is so strong he’s become weightless, only Will’s feather-light hold keeping him tethered. “I’ll pass through the town and out to the East.” His breath stutters. The sound that had brought him such comfort through his short time in the war was now warping into a muffled and echoey mixture as if he’d put wet cotton in his ears while they explored opposite sides of a sea cave. “All the way to Croisilles Wood.”
He heaves in as much air as he can. The metallic tang of blood on his tongue abates until the memory of it slips away like sand between his fingers.
Breathe. Keep breathing, he tells himself. So he takes another breath and another and another until it’s all he can do.
He doesn’t want to die. Emptiness in all its forms never sat well with him. His vision was meant to be filled with the shapes and colours of all the world had to offer, good and bad. Sound was meant to flow and crash and crackle in his ears. The scents of fresh blossoms, petrichor, and rot were meant to be taken in. The feel of butterfly kisses against his eyelids and stab wounds alike were meant to leave striking, lasting impressions. The flavours of newly picked cherries and heavy cordite in the air were meant to be experienced on his tongue.
It wasn’t fair. He wasn’t ready. He wasn’t. There was still so much of life left for him to consume, to feel, to know, to endure.
“It’ll be dark by then,” he warns. The thought of Will struggling through this emptiness alone is almost too much to bear.
“That won’t bother me.”
Will’s voice is near unintelligible now, but he continues to strain, desperate for the only thing he has left. There’s something more he can’t quite remember; a wisp of a purpose he has yet to fulfill.
“I’ll find the 2 nd . I’ll give them the message, and then I’ll find your brother.” Joe. He’s going to find Joe. Calm seeps into every pore as the last words reverb like a mantra.
No. Like a sacred promise.
An image flashes through his mind’s eye. Joe’s laughing, his eyes bright as he lounges on a picnic blanket in the sun-kissed cherry orchard of their home. Their mum, next to him, tugs on a loose curl before pinching his cheek, her way of reminding him to not be so cheeky. Will, shoulders relaxed and skin soft and pink with warmth, strolls over, wicker basket in hand. He passes out sandwiches wrapped in cloth before he sits next to mum. He smiles as she runs a hand through his breeze-mussed hair in thanks. Joe covers the soft quirk of his lip with his food.
He doesn’t want to ruin their peace, so he lets them be, contented to stand at the sidelines in the knowledge that they’re brimming with vitality, unmarred by burden or duty.
How life is meant to be lived.
He takes a breath and then lets it out.
The last thing he knows is this:
“Just like you.”