This is mainly just to post something up since its been so long sine I wrote anything. I wrote this probably about a year ago before started NaNoWriMo. Originally this was meant to be a part of a section in Tier 1 involving a different main character than in the first chapter I posted a while back. The war they refer to was the war that would eventually lead to the society Marie and Eric live in. Anyways, here ya go. Hopefully I'll have something new soon :)
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I can rarely recall any memory with such vividness with which I used to, when I could remember every detail of every dream and every memory that quivered by on even the most evasive and frail of wings. My brother’s face escapes me often when I try to think of home, but I do hark back to one lucid memory.
He had just returned from the war. His hair was slick with oil and rainwater from the storm raging outside, and when he entered it was impossible to miss, not only because of his normal cinematic entry but for the wind attempting to siege our house as the door banged open with its force. Matthew grinned with a concise little chuckle, mocking sheepishness, as he shoved the door close on the desperate wind, and his muscles, fruits of the many years of hard labor and toil and training and pain, strained in perfect unison. The reality stood clear and harsh as he stepped into the light, revealing an unshaven sharp jaw-line and hardened eyes of steely gray: the little Matty that left all ambitious and excited to do some good and have some fun was no more. In his place stood a man, a bold and brusque man with morals and ideals and a want to change the world in any way he could manage and serve his country properly (even when their intentioned were not always the best). Still that familiar smile shone through his rock of a visage and we crowded around him once the image settled in, eager to embrace him with us once more.
He talked of his many travels, through snow and sand and clouds and mud and rain. He talked of our letters to him and apologized for the ones he never answered. He talked of his sergeant and his officer, men as hardened as he was now no doubt, and of his companions of the war. He talked of wounds and scars, even showed us a few, and of how he lost his finger a year ago (an anomaly overlooked by yours truly, but certainly not by our mother, who always did have a rather compulsory attention to detail). Most of all, however, Matthew talked of the blood. Of it covering his hands, covering his gun and clothes. Of it splattered on the walls of the buildings they infiltrated. Of it on the bullets he shot. Of it flooding his dreams on darker, lonelier nights. And the unspoken: of the blood that filled more pleasant dreams and filled is very waking thoughts without ever provoking disgust, without ever causing a flinch of even minimal surprise.
When the lights were dimmed and the family began to head towards their respected habitats for sleep, I followed Matthew to converse alone with him on the things he hadn’t said. I guessed a few of the simpler ones–about women he had seen and more than that, which we laughed at casually, like the good innocent brothers we once were. But when I questioned his true dreams, his true thoughts, he retreated subtly, those gray-ice eyes shifting away towards the hardwood floor beneath his feet. I provoked him, asked again; I wanted an answer. Finally he gave in, not from weakness but from his ties and unspoken allegiances to me that outranked any general’s allegiance to his country .
“Every day I see them. Their blood just...covers everything. It never goes away once you’ve fired that first shot. You’re always thirsty, always needing more of it. It never goes away.”
I nodded solemnly, trying to understand and empathize as I rested my elbows on my knees to save my energy for thinking. As I looked for the words to break the foreboding silence, I absently noticed he hadn’t taken off his boots yet; in fact, he hadn’t take off anything yet. Perhaps he had grown used to the feeling of a load on his back and on his heart. I commented lightly on the battered and muddy state of his footwear, as we once more began small-talk.
Somehow, though, I think I knew that beneath the caked dirt and silence of his tales that stains of even deeper scarlet threatened to reveal themselves. Perhaps he wanted it that way. Perhaps it was best to just forget.
