Don’t Pass Me Bye

The snow gently cascaded from the foggy night sky, blanketing the countrysides of England as Cillian Shaw jerked restlessly back and fourth on the crammed train with his fellow countrymen. On the outside he was trying to look clam, he was happy to be coming home. More honestly though to be on the ground; not a target in sky, where more bullets soared through the horizon than birds. But inside, his mind was a battlefield.

To say that he was returning to his wife Isla, the same man would be a lie. The golden soul that had once burned inside of him now flickered a dull flame of grey, empty and sullen in his battered chest. His mind was plagued with daunting recollections and pain. The remnants of the man that he'd once been had been left in the mud and blood, trampled over and left to perish.

Off in the distance through the dense fog and snow, Cillian could see the lights illuminating the familiar glow of Coventry. After a few minutes the train pulled to a stop at the station. He looked out the window at the cluster of women and children crowding the station, eager to reunite with their men. Some had smiles on their faces, while others looked worried and uneasy.

As the train doors opened, a rapturous howl of cheer roared from the crowded car. Cillian mirthlessly chuckled—nearly jumping out of his RAF uniform when a hand shook his shoulder.

"Cheer up mate, we’re home! We’re finally home!" A fellow comrade shouted in his face, bouncing up joyously from his seat crosswise from him.

Cillian ignored the comment and stood clutching onto his knapsack, wobbling out of the car with the flock of men. For a moment he felt like he was there again. Packed like a sardine in a tin can readying to charge across the fields and soar through the skies, counting how long it would take till a bullet struck him down.

But when his worn out boots touched the concrete of the train platform, he knew he was safe and finally home.

Cillian peered around the platform through the thick steam and masses of people rejoicing, lost in the bliss of their reunions. He scoured until his eyes caught her—there near the back of the platform under a gaslight ardently searching the crowd herself. As their eyes met, Cillian's pulse leaped and his hands froze in damp eagerness, but his face was hard like stone.

Isla’s emerald green eyes lit up, a deep smile drew across her red lips. She ran towards her husband pushing though the crowds; her Scottish hum apologising along the way, as her blonde curls billowed on top her snow dusted shoulders. Cillian approached her slowly, almost as if he was too scared to see her again.

It was a reunion he’d been waiting for since he’d left her on this very platform nearly two years ago, newly married and hopeful.

But he wished a reunion not this way. Not with him like this.

“Cillian!” Isla threw her arms around him, squeezing him tight in her embrace. Warmth spread across his achy bones, as the sweet scent of rose from her perfume lingered into his nose. For a moment there in her arms, he forgot how to love, how to hug. It was an emotion he’d lost so long ago to war.

Anxiously, he wrapped his arms around her feeling as if she’d crumble under his touch. After all that he’d done over there, he felt unworthy to hold something so pure and so precious.

Isla lifted a watery gaze at him kissing his dry chapped lips. When she pulled away, Cillian noticed something burdening her eyes. Cillian smiled at her—a false reassurance; wiping the snow from her nose. "I missed you." He murmured horsely.

"I missed you too, it's been far too long," Isla said, lacing her icy fingers in between his, kissing him once more. Cillian winced from the sudden touch, almost startled. She'd touched a wounded piece inside of him that had been stagnant for so long. "Come on, let’s get you out of the cold. We’ll catch up and celebrate at home, everyone's waiting for you."

Cillian raised the smile of a broken man, following Isla’s lead as she tugged him merrily through the crowded platform to the waiting taxi.

The weeks that followed his homecoming had been an arduous struggle for Cillian. During the days he felt like a stranger in his own body—a ghost just floating in a shell. During the nights, he would wake up screaming from the same repeating nightmare.

His downed Hawker lit the night sea ablaze like an inferno, bobbing along to the rhythm of the waves as Cillian flailed and gasped cinched inside. As the flames and smoke consumed its engine, it felt like he'd been plunged straight into hell. He pried at the safety belt jammed shut across his chest, as water pooled over his knees seeping in through the bullet holes that peppered the windscreen. His muscles burned and his fingers felt broken as the water rose above his chest, then over his mouth, quickly drowning him into an eternal darkness.

That’s when he’d wake in Isla’s arms crying, realising that he’d done it again. During the sparse moments that Cillian felt like talking, Isla assured him that she was more than happy to help him through the episodes. She loved him and it was a wife's duty, as she called it. But Cillian could see that it was taking a tole on her. Her eyes were stained purple with exhaustion, she was easy to snap and Cillian had overheard the discontented phone calls to her friends.

Three months into his return; they’d sat together one afternoon in an all too familiar silence, when Isla had said that she was sure that he was getting better. He’d been talking more, left the house to buy still rationed groceries and even allowed Isla to play the piano again.

But he didn’t feel any better. That better Cillian was a facade. A grim, fragile flame of sorrow just waiting for the wind. And the wind came that night, blowing out the flame in his soul.

Cillian awoke in the night from a stream of light veiling through the iron bars of the balcony window. He shuddered from the light, hovering his hand over his eyes as the low hum of a car engine gurgled outside.

Cillian glanced to his left, Isla was not beside him, only her imprint wrinkled within the sheet. Cillian’s heart nearly stalled when he heard a gunshot—no, a door slam downstairs. The sound spiralled in his head; his heart thumped fast in his throat.

He got up from the bed, running to the balcony window. He frantically rubbed the frost off the glass just in time to see Isla getting into a taxi. Instantly, a fear settled into his stomach, he was confused and lost. Where was she going? Had she finally had enough and gave up on him?

Panic gripped his heart as acid crawled up his throat. Cillian hammered on the frosted window, beating it senselessly crying out Isla’s name as the glass cracked underneath his fist. The bones in his body grew weak, stricken by a crippling sadness. Cillian sunk down onto the floor weeping into his palms, as the taxi speed off fading the room into darkness.

Hours later once his tears had dried and the brawn returned to his bones, Cillian stumbled downstairs and lit a small fire in the grate. He sat down on the sofa staring into the crackling fire; imaging the flames leaping from the grate engulfing the entire house and him. The war had been the match, and Isla's departure had been the phosphorus that sent everything burning down around him.

Cillian shivered his gaze away from the fire, noticing a white envelope on top the fireplace. He stood and walked to the fireplace seeing that it was a letter addressed to him in Isla’s cursive. With shaky fingers and a heavy heart he sighed, opening it, as tears warmed his icy cheeks.

My dearest Cillian, I greatly apologise for the manner in which I leave you, but my mother has been taken ill by tuberculosis. I have left to Edinburgh on the earliest train on my own, and will be there until my mother passes. I was going to tell you about my leaving, and even have you come, but I do hope you understand that given your condition, I do not think it best for you my love to be around more death. I will write you once I have arrived at mother's. Love, Your Dearest Isla.

Cillian leant down in front of the fire, letting the heat thaw his face. He threw the letter into the flames, as waves of anger and sorrow and helplessness buried him.

For months after Isla’s departure, the pair had written to one another and Cillian eventually forgave Isla for her untimely exit. Her mother's health had been on a quick decline, and with each correspondence the news had always been for worse not better.

Cillian tried to survive by himself the best he could. When the sea came for him he learned how to pull himself out. How to summon her to help him. Each morning he’d made it routine to wait at the postbox for her letters. The letters soothed his heart, making him feel like she was somehow there with him. But as time passed, Cillian saw less and less of the postman, till one day he never returned.

Cillian knew that tuberculosis was an unforgiving disease, he'd heard the terrible stories spun by his parents. And with the ongoing silence, he felt deep in his gut and knew that it must have claimed Martha and Isla.

The early days of Isla’s fabled death had not been easy on Cillian. As the months elapsed, day and night he’d grieve the tears of a thousand sorrows. And when Cillian had managed to stop crying, he’d be haunted by visions and remnants of Isla from his mind that seemed to allay his melancholy.

Cillian could still smell the bittersweet tinge of rose from her perfume, embedded in the linens from when she rested beside him. He could hear her fingers harp the cream keys of the grand piano; whose symphony lingered throughout the halls. And when she put her lips to his, his crippled soul lit with embers of fervour.

On a cold November evening, ten months since Isla had left—no, she came back; Cillian laid on the bed swept up into Appointment in Samarra. As he read a soft voice cooed in his ear, causing him to jerk away from Julian's tragic down spiral.

Isla was calling.

Cillian dogeared the page and got up from the bed, buttoning up his dress shirt and smoothing out the creases. Cillian knew Isla hated it when he looked unkempt, she thought it made him look less respectable. He ruffled his hair into place and left the room.

Bouts of cheers and laughter warmed the dining room which chimed from the end of the table as Cillian entered the room. He sat down at the head chair, smiling at his children Catherine and Philip, who joked with Isla who sat with them.

She was wearing his favourite dress, a dark emerald silk gown that paired with her eyes. A token from their honeymoon in Ireland. Catherine was fitted in a velvet ruby dress with her chestnut hair neatly braided, and Philip bore the striking resemblance to Cillian, dapper in a dressed down miniature tux.

Cillian sat for a moment, regarding at the life they’d created. When he looked at them it made all the mental torment dissipate. All of his joy and happiness sat there in front of him; these shards of humanity that were mere fabrications—

He gazed down at the steaming meat, potatoes and baked beans that fogged the sliver beneath him. The spices drifted into his nose, churning his stomach. "It smells good, darling." Cillian called down to Isla, picking up his fork and knife.

Isla looked away from the children, gazing across the table at her husband. Their plates sat empty gathering dust. They’d eaten without him like they always did. "Good, my love," she said softly. "I made it especially for you."

Cillian grinned. As he cut into the meat the room plunged into desolation and silence. Cillian looked up from the empty plate petrified as the fork hung at his lips—his family was gone. He sat frozen as the cutlery clanged onto the plate. His heart crumbled down his spine and his veins began to tremble.

“Isla?” her name lumped in his throat. “Catherine? Philip?” Cillian cried out. He waited for a response but only the wind moaned athwart the rooftops.

He immediately stood—a wave of sadness shrouded him as he raced out of the dining room. Cillian shouted their names, helplessly roaming the numerous halls and rooms. Their names echoing through his head, repeating over and over swallowing his every thought.

Blackbirds fled from the barren trees as Cillian emerged from the house. He paced out into the cold front drive wailing out again to his family, but, to no avail. He searched the entire grounds; from the garage to the vacant stables, calling and calling withered in tears. But only darkness answered him. Cillian leant against the broad shed door to catch his breath. His heart felt like it was being clenched mercilessly inside his chest—it hurt to breathe, to think. He felt too lonely. He needed them.

Cillian sauntered dolefully back to the house. When he entered he froze in the doorway, hearing a operatic melody carolling from the gramophone upstairs. Someone was in the house. Hurriedly, he skipped up the stairs, pursuing after the song like a lost little boy—each belt of the soprano guiding his feet closer to the mystery player.

The aria spun its loudest, enveloping him as Cillian inched towards their bedroom; the source. He peaked in, feeling a reprieved comfort burn bright inside the rusted cage of his ribs. There she was, sat delicately at the vanity running a finger through the entanglement of her braid, humming along to "Madam Butterfly".

"There you are." Cillian said desperately, approaching Isla. "I thought you left me."

Isla stood from the vanity tightening her jade dressing gown. "I was putting the children to sleep," she smiled. "You know how Catherine gets."

"She’s a terror, just like her mother." Cillian chuckled, kissing Isla’s cold raw lips. Isla playfully pinched his arm laughing, staring deep into his eyes while Cillian cringed from the pain.

Isla took Cillian’s hands, placing one her on her hip and the other on her shoulder. "Dance with me." She pressed her frigid body against his, already swaying to the rhythm, but Cillian stood apprehensively.

He swallowed and cleared his throat than said, "You know I can’t dance."

Isla leaned in, her breath sending a shiver down his spine. "Just do it like you always do, my dearest."

Cillian exhaled, looking down nervously at he feet before striking his right foot forward, like he always did.

There, he waltzed alone with her ghost in the golden glow of candlelight till the gramophone's needle quieted. They then retired to bed and slept, where Isla vanished into his dreams.

The next morning, Cillian jerked awake to the sunlight spearing through the curtain. He rolled himself over to shade away from the glare, immediately noticing that Isla had awoken before him. He brushed his hand over her side of the bed—it was cold to the touch, undisturbed.

Cillian pressed his cheek against the vacant space, feeling like the room was swelling around him. He lay there wondering why she always did this to him. Isla knew the detriment it caused him when she left him so abruptly, disappearing like wraith into a veil of the smoke. Sometimes she could be so cruel; like suspending a hammer tied by a frayed rope over his fragile porcelain mind.

Cillian rose from the bed and walked out onto the balcony hunching over the cold iron rails. He closed his eyes, standing in his own solitude for a moment, then when it became too lonely, he blinked them open.

As the bitter wind nipped at his cheeks, out of the corner of his eye Cillian could see something coasting along the sea—no, lake which bordered their home. With a hand over his eyes, Cillian squinted out to the banned waters recognising Isla's emerald dress and golden curls.

Cillian's throat went tight with dread.

Frantically, Cillian repealed from the balcony and ran out of the room. After all those nights of him drowning in his sleep—haunted by the sea, she’d chosen to call him there.

When Cillian had mustered the courage, he’d told her about that night; when his Hawker Hurricane had been blown out of the sky by the German pilot. He’d floated for days on the plane's sliced wing, starving and nearly unconscious. Till a rescue boat pulled him out, who knows when, nearly dead to the world.

Cillian ran down the hall, thumping loudly down the stairs and charged out the door into the crisp morning. He sprinted to the back of the house towards the lake, panting and wailing her name that burned raw in his throat.

"Come sail away with me, Cillian." Isla’s voice floated hollowly into his ear.

As he rounded the shed he could see her, there, in a rickety wooden boat swaying with the waves. As he grew closer the drone of propellers and ricocheting shells flooded his ears, and the wind howled fiercely around him heaving him faster towards the shore. Cillian covered his ears, trying to block out the wound. It isn’t real, it isn’t real, he told himself, but it all felt too real.

He was back in hell.

"Come sail away, like you were supposed to all those months ago."

Cillian desperately kept running through the battlefield, "Isla! Isla what are you doing?!" he shouted hurling himself onto the dock. "I told you never to go near the water!"

Fear rose thick and foul in his core as Cillian reached the docks edge. He made a split decision that stabbed ice through his bones, sinking himself into the rivers cold grasp. His lungs felt like they were choking in his chest with each heavy step, as the water swayed at his throat.

Isla peered over her shoulder from the splash, her red lips creasing vilely. Cillian held her cold gaze as she turned around and leaned over the boat's edge, reaching out her hand, baiting him.

As Cillian neared the boat he held out his quivering, blood covered hand to Isla. As their fingers met, Isla's spirit withered away, shattered by the wind. That's when Cillian saw the blood, then sudden onslaught of chaos closing in all around him; bodies and droning enemy aeroplanes and disembodied screams hollering, "Retreat! Retreat!”

Tears flooded Cillian's eyes as he held down the urge to scream, afraid. Cillian collapsed backwards into the water, screaming into the lake. He quickly staggered up, coughing out bits of water as he mercilessly plowed out of the lake and staggered back to the house.

Cillian barraged through the front door, sending a glass vase of sickly yellow—no, beautifully red roses crashing onto the floor. He rushed upstairs to the bathroom, jumping into the empty tub, shivering, soaked in fear. Cillian turned on the faucet letting the warm water rush over his clothed body, rinsing away the memories that terrorised his tired mind.

The water couldn't hurt him anymore.

Cillian sat in silence for hours sulking inside the tub. When the aeroplanes had landed and the spent ammunition seeped into the earth, he left the tub and carried himself downstairs where he noticed the broken vase. The last piece of Isla that he had left was there; shattered on the floor.

Wistfully, he fetched the broom and pan and sat himself on the floor and swept up the shards. Cillian fished the wilted roses out of the glass, neatly lining them up in a row—they were too dear to him to leave to be cut and bruised by the glass in the pan.

As he swept the remainder of the glass, there was a sudden rattle on the doorknob. Cillian paused dropping the broom and pan, looking up incredulously at the knob. No one visited him anymore, they were all either too scared or too ashamed of him. Who could it be then? He wondered.

After a struggle the lock clicked and the door slowly opened.

Cillian's heart stopped.

Isla fumbled through the doorway, mumbling to the bundled baby cradled warmly in her arms with a black valise sat at her feet. A smile dimpled her rosy cheeks when she saw Cillian—but Cillian sat there, frozen in stunned shock.

She came back.

"Hi darling," Isla said almost guiltily, cautiously inching forward. She glared down at the mess, furrowing her brows. "What happened?"

Overwhelmed, the words caught in Cillian's throat. "I... I knocked over the vase. The flowers you bought me when I came back..." Cillian paused. He stood, feeling like the ground was about to give in beneath him. Still dazed, he peered vacantly at the babe, wondering.

Isla saw the confusion on his brow. She now knew for certain that he hadn't read the letters she'd sent detailing the news. Isla looked down at the babe then back up to Cillian. "He's your son."

Cillian slowly shook his head in disbelief. "My son?" He asked under his breath, feeling a jolt shake his heart.

Isla nodded, giving a little laugh as her eyes gleamed with tears. “Do you want to hold him?”

Cillian hesitated for a moment, suddenly feeling warm and sick to his stomach. He swallowed loudly and reached out his arms, carefully taking the babe from Isla. He looked down at the wee one giggling happily up at him. Tears prickled from his eyes at the array of emotions remedying his heart. Just holding something so full of life and so innocent, filled the emptiness inside him.

At that moment, there was a change in Cillian. The flame of his soul that had once been blown out had now been relit by what was there in his arms, smiling up at him.

Isla wrapped her arms around Cillian's shoulders, kissing his cheek. He gasped from her touch—for the first time in nearly a year he could feel the blood pulsing through her veins. She wasn’t a block of ice frozen in his memory.

"I’m sorry, I stopped writing you for awhile," Isla pulled away. "After mother died I grew ill myself. Thought I’d caught it as well, but then the doctor told me that I was pregnant. I wrote you when I gained back my strength, but you never replied. I thought you were cross with me."

Cillian looked up from his mesmerising gaze; oblivious to a word that Isla had said. He was lost in admiration of his son and nothing else in that moment mattered. "What’s his name?" His eyes glittered in hers.

Isla hesitated. "I was thinking of Philip, after your father?"

Cillian nodded through tears, smiling. "Philip, yes, we'll call him Philip."

Cillian took Isla around the waist, kissing her temple and lead his family into the drawing room.

Though Cillian would never be the same man that he’d been before the war; forever hounded by its shadows of strife and terror. He now had something that lit those shadows when they grew too dark. Something that drives every humans spirit through this harsh world; through tears and joy across the seven seas and over the vast planes of the earth.

He finally had something to love, and something to love him back. No matter how broken he was.