Healing Poppies Prologue (Unfinished)

Frederick Tors’ eyes were half-lidded and almost closed, his mind foggy and useless to the point where he raked his russet-tinted palms against barbed wire while trying to repair it in the dawn’s emerging light; all on the day the Great War ended.

He couldn’t think straight anymore. He’d been awake for a few days straight, only getting four hours of sleep in between watch shifts. When he was called alongside two other soldiers to fix the barbed wire shielding his section of the trenches, all he could think about was sending silent pleas to the void to be taken out by a German sniper. If he was potential wastage then, he was still so now.

It was the raucous cacophony of celebration that swept through the trenches like a river that woke him up. It still didn’t click for him, though.

The war was over now.

Gingerly stepping into the safety of the trenches’ wooden walls again, he wandered through its winding passages, bumping past cheering soldiers and roaring laughter and joy. Disconnected from it all, he trudged past the swelling crowds to the first aid station, which was nothing more but a hole in the wall.

Blood trickled down his shaking palms and onto his wrists.

He sat on a wooden crate motionlessly, as the medic dabbled a painful alcohol onto his wounds and wrapped gauze around his hands until they were lightly coated. There was still blood to spare though, and it leaked through his bandages.

Frederick whispered to no one, “Is… is the war really over now?”

The medic gave him a sympathetic look. “It is. It’s all over. We won.”

His body was an empty void. There was nothing to feel now. Nothing.

But the war was over now.