When the missile defence lights up the night sky, I lie in the bathtub and watch shadows waltz across the ceiling, until a flash through the tiny window scares them still.
It must be a beautiful sight.
In that past life, I knew what beauty was. My camera was one of the few things I took with me, but the batteries died long ago, and no marketplace would ship to a country in flames.
Now I’m nobody.
We’re all nobody here.
Tomorrow, when I emerge from the house hidden in netting and leaves, scanning the sky for a stray drone, I’ll see those who remain. Perhaps there will be fewer of us than yesterday, but we’re lucky.
A nearby explosion makes the walls shake.
We’re not always lucky.
* * *
Morning comes grey and wet, with the acrid smell of last night’s strike and the clearing it left in the forest behind the village. My back is aching from sleeping in the bathtub.
I make my morning round along the overgrown trail, to the kitchen garden on the east side, to the houses, nodding to the others. We don’t talk. Just another Tuesday.
On my way back, I meet Pyotr. He’s twelve or thirteen, I can’t tell. He wants to know if I’ve still got the camera, if I’ll show him how it works when it does. I tell him the batteries are dead; he says he’ll find me batteries. He says it every time. I give him an apple and tell him to keep his head down.
Then I hear tanks in the distance, entering the forest, closing in. I send Pyotr home and walk toward the sound.
The column rolls past me, the vehicles splattered with mud, oil, and soot, their barrels blackened, gaping holes in the armour. Lions are etched on the sides: the Fourth Armoured Squadron. The last vehicle stops, and a soldier climbs down from the hatch and fixes his gaze on me.
I stand a few steps ahead of everyone else, ready to speak on behalf of my people.
“Lieutenant Leo Argenson,” he introduces himself, looking up at me.
I’m six feet tall, and he’s barely five and a half.
“We’ll stop here until tomorrow evening. My people need rest.”
“No.”
“No?”
“The area is a target,” I explain, “and you were spotted long before you entered the forest. You’ll leave us by this afternoon at most.”
He doesn’t move.
I sigh. “Lieutenant, every night the missile defence intercepts dozens of missiles over the forest. A few days ago,” I wave my hand toward the outer houses, now charred, “we were unlucky. But if you stay here, luck won’t come into it. There will be hundreds of missiles instead. Do you want to use us as cover?”
I turn toward the clearing, where the night’s strike is smoking black against the morning. I let him see it.
Leo turns pale.
As the squadron leaves our hidden forest village, I think I won’t see him again, and nothing moves inside me at the thought.
* * *
Missiles come to meet us at night, hundreds of them. For a moment, I consider staying in the bathtub – at least it’ll make a decent coffin when it hits me. But I leave the tub and run from the house.
Guess I still want to live.
The forest is burning, the ground trembles as each hit lands beyond the trees. The missile defence is trying, and it is a beautiful sight; I freeze for a moment, watching the fireworks streak across the sky. Then I turn and run. Nothing to save. No one to save.
In the morning, I find Leo.
He’s slumped against the side of a half-buried tank, head bowed. He looks up as I come. Further away, the remains of the entire squadron are smoking into the azure sky.
I watch for drones, move closer, sit down next to him, and we listen to the distant crackle of burning metal.
“Kristina,” I say.
“What now, Kristina?”
I shrug. “I don’t know, Leo. Everyone is dead. Guess I’m lucky.”
He chuckles. “Guess I’m lucky too.”
Then we walk back into the forest, skirting the remains of the village in a wide arc. He has seen a lot, I’m sure. But I don’t want him to see the craters where houses and people were swallowed alive. Enough that I have.
Once we’re far enough in, I catch myself in a shameful thought: there won’t be any missiles now. No one will waste expensive ammunition to kill two people.
We can just live.
We live a little until the war ends.
* * *
Peacetime turns out to be more disorienting than wartime: too much of everything at once, too many bright colours, too much noise. The question of how to survive gives way to how to live.
I rediscover things.
The sound of a camera shutter. The colour of the night sky. The taste of food that isn’t canned. The smell of fleur d’oranger. I loved them then, in that past life, and I learn to love them again.
In our new house, every night I lie in the bathtub and wait for the missiles, but they never come. I feel almost sad not hearing them anymore. Life was easier back then; I doubt I’ll ever get used to it, but at least Leo sits with me and holds my hand.
The sky stays dark.
Photo by sreeram adithya on Unsplash
It took me a while to figure out what to tell about this one. What can I say? It came to me when I saw two names on the orders’ screen at a pizza corner, and I have no idea where I got missiles from.
Next short story, Sirocco, will be out at October 1st. There will be wind, a lot of it – and an announcement.
Thank you for reading.
Aldwin
