Letters

Lost love in a world full of turmoil

Dear Lieutenant   

Please excuse my writing, I can’t stop my hands from shaking because I’m cold and I’m alone tonight. A dark figure wrote, but the ink was blotchy and ran off the page. The room shook again and was a blaze with a fierce orange light, however the figure in the corner of the small attic room hardly flinched. He kept writing almost frantic now, the small light from a flicking candle almost toppled over as the room shook again.  I miss you, and I haven’t slept since I last saw you.  My dreams are plagued with your face; we did a lot together didn’t we? I certainly learnt a lot from you. Do you remember that night by the lake? When I punched you? It’s all I can think about since you left, because that’s when it all began, this stupid adventure that you dragged me through, but I don’t regret a single moment it ruined and revived me. You made my life begin darling, and I don’t regret anything, even now as I’m writing in an old attic room, with the world falling around me. I know I promised you I would never be cliché but all I have ever wanted is to be with you, and you never saw that. I know you believed I needed more but you were all that I needed, I need you to know that. But now its dark, and everyone is telling me to leave, your not coming, I’m not going to see you again and the worst is that maybe their right and you don’t want me anymore. I’ve forgiven you and I don’t blame you for not wanting me, and yet I will not leave. I’ve got no place to go, and why should it matter? I will be gone from this world sooner rather than later. I just wanted to see you, one last time my love. But no matter, England will not fall tonight. My death will prevent thousands of lives from suffering, and what is my life compared to many. You were right all along… it is illogical to try and save one at the risk of so many.  

James’, the man of barley twenty-eight, squinted at the writing trying to make sure it was the right words to end a relationship that had swallowed his whole life. But it was all too late and now he wished he had told him these words long ago, before this, before it was all too late to say goodbye.

I love you and please my dearest, never forget me. This is not a letter of guilt, but rather one to say goodbye. One to remind you to remember me not as you see me now, but as I was that first summer, before all of it… before the lies, the deceit and the running. Before… before the fight… back in the hotel room over looking the village in Atlandsa, I hope you remember that night? Because it’s the only memory that has kept me alive these last couple of months, and I hope the memory of my lips keep you awake as much as they have kept me up in the cold night, here in Densia.

Forever yours

JAMES

“James! We can’t stay here any longer, we need to move.” Mrs. Walker came hurrying into the small attic room above her house. James looked up almost lost in the memories of warm blue skies and the feeling of the grass beneath his fingertips, and lips that were sweet with the taste of strawberries. But that memory had happened so long ago James had trouble remembering if it was all just a dream. And then it hit him, he knew in that moment that he would never see those green eyes or hear the warm laugh again, and tears filled his bright blue eyes in the gloom, but he was strong he would not fall after coming so far for the man who would not say goodbye.  

“I can’t leave. He wouldn’t want me to leave. What is one life in comparison to many?” he whispered the line again that was almost becoming a chant on his dry, cracked lips. Gone was the boy of twenty full of life and ready to fight for his country and what he believed in. What was left, a mere eight years later, was a man who could have been seventy, living in a past that was a lot lighter and had no mention of pain.

“James listen to me, it’s been four hours. He isn’t coming.”

“I know” the man said tiredly, and felt the tears, which he had tried to stem, form once again in his eyes. “But I can’t leave. You have to go, I cannot keep you safe any longer.” She had tears in her eyes, and he felt his heart break for her, they had become close over the last year, but he would not let her fall into the trap he was now ensnared in.

“You need to go there is nothing here any longer Mrs. Walker” he stood and hugged her gently as she placed fragile arms around his broad shoulders.

“James come with us, its not too late…” he shook his head before she could carry on, he didn’t want her to break the resolve that his chant had barely created. “I cant you know that,” he swallowed grasping the letter tightly in his hand. “But would you give him this letter? I mean only if you see or if he comes to find you?” he asked, and was ashamed to find that his voice shook with suppressed grief. Mrs. Walker gently took the letter from his shaking hand and he watched as she placed it carefully in her coat pocket. The room shook once again and he grabbed hold of the chair to stop himself from hurting the frail woman in front of his broad form. It was time for her to leave he gently walked her to the trap door which led to the rest of the house and then with one final frightened look she fled. This town would soon be turned to ash, but he was happy to let it crumple around him. They had found him and he would not fight any longer, he had nothing left to fight for, let ashes turn to ashes.  

 

Yet James felt weak and hated it. He had never been a weak man. He had always been a leader to the men that had followed him into the battlefield. Yet Harry O’Shay had changed the whole world around for him, and there was no way he could right it again. Once Harry was gone, James had run and tried so hard to not look back, but life was now dull and meaningless without him. There was no future with or without the man who had strolled into his life all those years ago, and now, as James looked around him at the destroyed house with the sound of the air raid going off outside, he knew that there really was no turning back now. He will be safe, England will not fall, and your mother did not die in vain. This sentence had become the only thing keeping him locked in this room, as the sinking realization that Harry was not coming to his rescue seeped in. A nasty voice inside of his head whispered he has given up on you, like everyone else. James Riley, a hero? Give me a god dam break. But the voice was right; it was his fault, everything that had happened was his Goddamn fault. Why hadn’t he listened to Harry all those moths ago? And why for the life of him did he face this terrible problem alone and not without the comforting hand in his? But James held on to the idea that his lover would live even with the Riley line dying out with him. And maybe, just maybe, there was an after life. James smiled as he thought of his men and how they used to tease James about his idealistic ideas about there being something more than just the darkness of closing your eyes for eternal sleep.

 

Harry’s hand shook as he read the letter, his own howl of pain ripped through the quiet undisturbed churchyard. He was back, finally home, but it could no longer be called that. Everything that he had loved had been buried in the ground and there was no comfort in the green countryside that held too many memories for him. Harry had let the only one he had ever love slide through his fingers like golden sand, which ticked life away around him. How had he been so stupid? Harry now felt ashamed that he had ever been angry at James for saving one life when many were in danger but now he saw how precious one life was. But his captain had always saved everyone; no one had been lost on his watch, yet when his life was concerned Harry had let him down. 

 

The letter had come too late.

 

 By the time Harry had frantically arrived at the small village described by the letter, there was nothing left. As he remembered searching the rubble in a madness that had seem to consume him, his hands shook, as his body trembled with grief. James had been loyal to both of them, never giving up on his romantic ideals, he had tried everything in his power to be allowed to stay with the one he loved in this hypocritical world that had done everything to destroy them. And finally, after all of James’ hard work Harry had stupidly thought it was best to leave, and allow a peace to settle, not happiness, but peace. But he was wrong, leaving James was the worst thing he could have done for himself, it was as though he had left half of his soul in that small hotel room. The blow had defeated them both, and there was no one to blame for the death of his lover but himself.  And he was sure the blow was going to kill him also.

 

However he would not fail James again, he would not become the Enobarbus of this story. He would take up his lovers place and fight where he had left off. This morning the conflict had ended, and Harry knew, even if the world did not, that it was because of his lover. Their destinies really hand been intertwined long before all of this, long before they had even met, and even before they were thought about by their mothers. Destiny, fate or even God, whatever you wanted to call it, Harry had ceased to care after seeing all the horrors, which had seemed to burn all that was left of his faith, or so he had believed.  Yet with the burial of the only person he had ever truly let inside of his guarded walls, he found himself pleading almost begging, to anyone or anything that may slightly care about what was happening on this violent planet called earth, that James was safe, comfortable and happy. Harry knew this was the least his captain deserved, with the sacrifice that he had made to and for his country. He truly was the best general there ever was, and although Harry had no medal or trophy to give his lover, he understood that he deserved all the reward the country could give. And now if you are still listening, I will begin at the start, a beginning that is filled with strawberries and warm summer evenings were filled with happiness and pleasure that would never come again to either James or Harry.

 

Author's Note

Sorry about the grammar problems, but i hope its not too short