Drink My Soul ... Please (Rie Sheridan Rose)
-what dreams may come must give us pause....
Hamlet,
William Shakespeare
The machine sat on the scarred oak counter...a tiny
monitor with battered keyboard. It looked so innocent, its cursor blinking steadily,
a little green pulse tallying electronic heartbeats. A single word of text
glowed on the screen invitingly. "Engage...?"
Daniscar Zenov jerked upright with a gasp, staring around him in the
darkness.
Just another dream.... He buried his face in his
hands. Dear God...no more dreams. Please...no more dreams.
***
Elianora Vaire could only just remember a time before
the War. She had been ten when it started. When it began, they predicted it
would be over in days-ending with the long-feared destruction of the world.
Instead, it took eighteen years.
The problem of radiation poisoning had been licked
with the invention of the Doomsday Bombs. Cities might fall, but the air would
be safe for the Powers-That-Be when they crawled out from under their rocks, so
they didn't hesitate to use the weapons. Civilizations that had stood for
millennia were rubble in weeks.
Of course, there were things that those in power had
failed to take into account. Such as the fact that
military bases weren't the only things housed in cities. So were factories and
refineries, universities and banks....
By the end of the second year, the armies were
fighting on horseback and on foot. By the end of the third year, the major
fighting was down to desultory strikes by bands of roving commandos. The
ordinary citizenry who managed by luck or curse to survive the initial
destruction of their world began to pick up the broken threads of tattered
lives.
Elianora and her father, Tikardo,
were near nobility in the tenuous power structure of the New World economy. Tikardo had two horses to draw the sawed-off truck bed that
served as his traveling showroom. He was a metal dealer who sold most of his
wares to farmers struggling to revitalize the countryside. A used car salesman
in the Before War world, the gleanings from his devastated lot had seen them
through the worst times with relative ease when his neighbors started trying to
rebuild. Scrap metal was a precious commodity in a world thrown back to its
roots.
Elianora stepped out of the three-room cinder block
home that seemed palatial compared to others in the neighborhood. She swept
dark hair from her forehead with the back of a well-tanned arm. Her hands were
covered with flour. It was a day of celebration. Word of the Cease-Fire had come
through with the morning's news-crier and she had decided to bake a cake. Not a
true light and frothy confection like she vaguely remembered from childhood,
but a treat for her father, nonetheless.
He was late. She expected him long before this. The day
had been scorching hot. There might be no radiation, but dust clouds rising
into the atmosphere from myriad bombings had never fully settled, making
semi-tropics of formerly temperate areas. The cinder block dwellings stayed fairly cool, but having a cook fire inside would turn one
into a kiln.
She set the pan containing her cake batter in the
center of the outdoor convection oven and blew on red-hot coals. With a
satisfied smile, she dusted her hands on her white linen shift and stood up,
scanning the horizon once more.
On the edge of sight, she glimpsed a horse-drawn
cart... but it was single harness, not her father's double rig. A salesman's
signature toga fluttered in the light breeze beginning to stir as he waved to
the girl by the cook fire. Her tall figure was well known to the whole village.
Elianora waved back and turned to step into the house.
A piercing whistle stopped her in her tracks, and she spun to see Tikardo's cart approaching from the south. She ran to meet
him. Her mother had died when she was five-long before the War started-and Tikardo was the only constant she remembered.
"Papa, is it true?"
He didn't need to ask for elaboration. "Yes, Angel,
it's true. The War is over." He leapt lightly from the cart and enfolded her in
a bear hug. "The War is finally over."
Tikardo was a
big man, darkly handsome. When the War had begun, he was the same age that
Elianora was now, and it had taken numerous favors and all of
his pre-War savings to be mustered out as a single parent. Many friends and
relatives were not so lucky-a pain that gnawed at him daily-but one look at
Elianora's shining face proved the cost worthwhile.
Thankfully, she remembered nothing of those first
terror-filled War years... and he had paid dearly again to make it so.
"I have a surprise for you, Lia."
"What is it, Papa?" She glanced eagerly toward the
rear of the cart.
"You'll get it tomorrow," he laughed.
"What is it?" she repeated, an edge of impatience
rising in her voice-she was unused to delayed gratification.
"Dani's coming home."
***
In a temporary camp halfway across the village,
War-weary soldiers enjoyed the first safe sleep many of them could remember.
There was nothing left worth fighting for by the end of the fifth year... but
duty dies hard, and no one ever said "stop." So the raids had gone on... and
on... and on. Until the Powers-That-Be finally remembered the word
"cease-fire."
There was a wistful quality to the air as the sun
managed to break through the dust clouds just in time to set. The low arcing
beams gave the utilitarian buildings fleeting warmth they aesthetically lacked.
Daniscar Zenov closed his eyes and breathed in the spring sunset.
Maybe tonight I'll sleep.
Lately he'd been too tired to sleep... and too afraid.
With sleep came dreams and dreams were definitely something
to be feared.
Dani could remember the time before the War much more
clearly than former neighbor Elianora. He had been seventeen when the War began
and keen to fight. It had seemed like the ultimate adventure to a headstrong
teenager.
For more than half his life he had been a soldier. The
adventure had worn off with his first scavenging mission into a newly bombed
city. The death and destruction had left him violently ill-to the raucous
amusement of his older comrades-and he had vowed then and there to survive the
War at any cost.
It hasn't always been easy either, he reflected,
absently massaging the right arm he had nearly lost three years ago.
But the scars he bore on his body could never touch
those on his soul... Dani sighed, with a wry half-smile. Such thoughts did no
one good. His left hand strayed to the chain around his neck and the battered
locket that hung from it.
The talisman had kept him going through more than one
rough spot. Without opening it, he could see the images inside. In one half of
the locket rested a family portrait of a happy couple and a grinning blond
teenager-how very long ago that photo session seemed-images from another life.
In the other was a picture hastily cut and wedged into
the opening. It showed a dark-haired solemn-eyed little girl, trying so hard to
look older than her ten years... He ran his good hand through lank blond hair
that lay like bleached straw across his leathery forehead. A jagged scar ran
from left cheek to temple. His gray-green eyes no longer laughed.
Will she even know me...?
He stepped to the doorway of the cinder block hut he
was assigned to with the rest of his squad. With a sigh, Dani pushed aside the
tinkling curtain of scrap metal serving as door, stooping to go inside.
Tomorrow I will find out...
***
Elianora pulled back in her father's arms. "W-what?"
"Dani's coming home. I saw him this afternoon. We're
the closest thing to family he has left, so I invited him to lunch. He'll be
here tomorrow about noon."
She walked to the cook pit in a daze, automatically
checking the progress of her cake. "Lia...?"
"Dani's coming home..." she whispered, one hand
straying to neatly braided hair. "Excuse me, Papa." She pulled the cake out of
the oven, setting it on the edge of the pit to cool and continuing into the
house.
She drifted into the small alcove Tiko had partitioned
off for her. She went to the far corner and knelt before a rickety shelf upon
which sat a small carved wooden box-one of the few mementos of her mother she
still possessed.
She carefully unlocked the casket with a tiny key she
wore around her neck. Inside the box was what she possessed of Daniscar. She made herself comfortable on the floor and
spread out her treasures one by one. There was a larger copy of the family
photo in his locket, heavily creased from years when she had slept with it
clutched tightly in her hand. A second photo showed a younger Dani tossing
six-year-old Lia into the air as she squealed with laughter. A crumpled piece
of paper wadded up in anger many years ago, then lovingly smoothed out declared
LIA LOVES DANI FOREVER in careful block print. And there was the letter.
Tikardo had
read it to her gently the first time because she wasn't able to decipher the
scrawled cursive yet... and he held her close as she cried herself to sleep,
only able to grasp that her beloved Dani was leaving her, and not the reason
why. Not that she fully understood even now why the seventeen-year-old had lied
his way into the army.
Later that night, she had quietly walked out of the
house and run barefoot in her nightgown to tap urgently on his window.
Tearfully, she had forced her photograph on him,
promising to wait forever... and now he was coming home. At last. She had never
forgotten-or betrayed-her promise, but long ago despaired of keeping it when no
word came.
Her vague memories were now older than Dani was when
he left.
Does he even remember me after all the horrors he must
have suffered?
Tomorrow she would find out...