I write for the free enjoyment of Moonlight and to perpetuate ML Love.
This is rated PG
Silver Star
Mick remembered the day as Decoration Day. The evening before each year’s holiday his parents would sit on the front porch, his father stoking his pipe and reading the afternoon newspaper while his mother would shell peas for her infamous Pea Salad. Mick reminisced the gravity of the holiday grew as he got closer and closer to enlistment age.
Mick slid the cover off the jewel case. He sat for a silent instant. All he had left were skeletons of memories. Other than Ray he couldn’t recall the other ‘dog-faces’ in Robert’s sepia photo. Beth had seen to having the photo copied for him. He sat, aching more than the frostbite that robbed a buddy of his toes; Mick’s lips straightened with his private self- judgments.
Mick’s weary eyes traveled to the TV and its chatter. The hyper-polished emcees’ babble droned to nothingness as the ticker underneath their smiling facades scrolled locations for neighborhood parades. He drew an unnecessary deep breath at the mention of a fish fry benefiting Veteran charities. He had prayed a long time ago that there would be no more wars, no more ragged Veterans returning to uneasy home lives.
Drawing a slow hand over his stubbly jaw, Mick nodded to himself and flipped the lid and stared at the medal. His medal. The gleaming gold and crisp ribbon that told the world his actions were considered "Gallantry in action against an enemy of the United States."
Sadly he popped the lid shut, with the same authoritative snap of a salute. It hadn’t been his imagination that war had ‘matured’ him and generations. What was in his psyche that he sublimated his own service and thought more of the others’ service? Replacing the jewel case in his trunk he retrieved his copy of Henry V to flip to what had been his favorite segment of the play. He lit the fireplace and switched off the telebabble and then finding his chair in the firelight he skimmed the stanzas until he found the sacredly haunting passage:
This story shall the good man teach his son;
And Crispin Crispian shall ne'er go by,
From this day to the ending of the world,
But we in it shall be remembered-
We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;
For he to-day that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother; be he ne'er so vile,
This day shall gentle his condition;
And gentlemen in England now-a-bed
Shall think themselves accurs'd they were not here,
And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks
That fought with us upon Saint Crispin's day.
His past band of brothers were asleep beneath headstones and fields of poppies. How close would he come to seeing the end of the world in his current undead state? He shook his head at that thought and closing the book he rested his eyes. The sounds of boots, the racket of war and radio static pounded his senses drawing him inward until he felt a gentle hand on his shoulder.
“Mick?” Beth’s fresh humanity washed away the pong of gun powder and gangrene. Mick’s smile grew as he dropped the book and rose to embrace her.
Fresh, young eyes adored him as she drew closer, “Hey, you must have really been into that book, you didn’t even hear me use my key.”
His arms reflexively embraced her as his undead heart fluttered. Beth’s fingernails combed his curls off his forehead to lay a sweet kiss on his smooth, cool flesh. “How are you feeling tonight?” Enjoying his embrace she fell closer to his cool strength.
Mick returned a glancing kiss to her pert nose and gave her the crooked smile she adored, “How am I feeling tonight?” Again he stole a kiss and then he drew back to see the golden volumes of her hair and her soft curves. “I feel blessed.”
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St. Crispen's Day Speech, Shakespeare's HENRY V, C. 1599
http://www.gonderzone.org/Library/Knights/crispen.htm
I guess I write the way I 'see'
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