The Time of War

It’s 1918 and you’re a German soldier on the Western Front. In a brief moment of repose, you slip your hand into your pocket and pull out a cigarette case. You open it up, slide one out and light it, closing your eyes as you put it to your mouth. You pay close attention to the feeling of smoke streaming into your lungs as you take the first drag. You’re alive. You’ve made it this far. Your body aches with exhaustion and your skin is decorated with bruises, cuts and scars, but no matter, because your feet still tread the land of the living, and the smoke dancing in your lungs is a sacred reminder of that fact.

You exhale and watch the smoke billow out into the night sky, looking upon the stars with a heart full of hope as you think of home and loved ones. You wonder what they’re doing right now. Are they asleep? Do their stomachs rumble as fiercely as yours? Never mind, you’ll be home soon. Surely this hell cannot continue much longer, after all. Either way, you’ll continue to fight for as long as necessary, for as long as your body continues to obey you. Even if it means being plagued by the ghosts of fallen comrades and having terrified eyes haunting your dreams, you’ll do it. For friends, family and the fatherland, there are no demons you won’t tackle.

However, you and your comrades never make it home. The most simple things; a meal, a hug… you’ll never share these with the people you love ever again.

You weren’t to know it, but you were within mere months of fulfilling your dream when French artillery shells plummeted to the earth and blasted your shelter apart, burying you and twenty others alive.

***

Chip, chip, chip.

"Professor, I've found something!"

2020. A group of students are crouching over the earth, engulfed in the hot rays of the beaming sun. A moustachioed man's head pops up, the silvery threads of his facial hear shimmering in the afternoon glare. He gets to his feet, wipes his brow and lumbers over to his protégé. Leaning over, he sees what‘s emerged from the dirt; a helmet. It‘s cracked, overlaid with a yellow crust and otherwise craggy, but nevertheless intact. Your helmet. Separated from you by a century, it is both lifeless and dynamic. A cold imprint of a life strongly lived.

“Maria!” the professor shouts, “Come, I think there is more to be discovered in this area!”

And so, the three carefully continue to excavate the area. A bell, a bottle, the remnants of a newspaper. Simple things. Things that remind the young archaeologist of a sobering truth; these hadn’t merely been pawns on a chessboard, but real people. Flesh and blood human beings with hopes and dreams. They dig further and, deep in the mud, find the remains of a boot. In it, a skeletal foot. Further still they go. Soon, they uncover the remains of numerous men. Their quick deaths and the conditions ensured they were preserved well, found in the positions they held at death. For instance, your comrade, Karl, who had fallen and curled up into the foetal position. Or Alfred, who had been sleeping gently when the shells rained down.

As the dig comes to an end, the young archaeologist feels moved enough to offer help in identifying the victims, seeking to make sure their existences would not fade away. After much work, the team experiences a great deal of success. Most of the victims are reunited with the history books, never again to be left behind.

You? You were one of the unfortunate ones. Your name remains unremembered. You are the faint whisper amongst a crowd, the stopped clock in an abandoned house. Unheard, forgotten.