"Men of No Living Nation" by Aliana
Mar. 2nd, 2012 06:47 pm![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
aliana1.livejournal.com posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
b2memB2MeM Challenge: We - Deep Thoughts
Real Estate - Economy
March 8th - The Dead receive their summons - March 3019, TA
Format: Drabble pair
Genre: Drama
Rating: Teen
Warnings: Disturbing imagery
Characters: JRR Tolkien, The Dead
Summary: Can we find correctives in No Man's Land?
Men of No Living Nation
1916
The signalman peers over the edge. In no man’s land, the ground’s gray and pocked as the skin of some invalid. Studded with shells, pierced with barbed wire.
And the bodies, broken and riddled as the earth, but not of it. Some half-in, half-out of craters, arms outstretched, eyes staring. Others face-down in the mud. The ones whose retreat was not swift enough. They are the in-between: neither in one trench nor the other, half-buried but not interred, in a place to which no owner can lay deed or claim.
John wonders if they are waiting to be called home.
3019
They are the gray ones, the ragged ones, lingering. A collection of bitter riddles: Bound by the earth but no longer in its embrace; whispers without speech; regret without recollection. Men of no living nation, bearing standards of smoke, and breathing, breathless, half-recollected songs of ash. Faces and voices worn to sameness as rocks on a riverbed, Is and Yous now faded to an eternal We.
We wait.
Then, the summons.
Memories stir, time folds in on itself as a weather-worn pennant. They will go, then, and cross the distance, cross the un-hallowed ground that stands between them and release.
Real Estate - Economy
March 8th - The Dead receive their summons - March 3019, TA
Format: Drabble pair
Genre: Drama
Rating: Teen
Warnings: Disturbing imagery
Characters: JRR Tolkien, The Dead
Summary: Can we find correctives in No Man's Land?
Men of No Living Nation
1916
The signalman peers over the edge. In no man’s land, the ground’s gray and pocked as the skin of some invalid. Studded with shells, pierced with barbed wire.
And the bodies, broken and riddled as the earth, but not of it. Some half-in, half-out of craters, arms outstretched, eyes staring. Others face-down in the mud. The ones whose retreat was not swift enough. They are the in-between: neither in one trench nor the other, half-buried but not interred, in a place to which no owner can lay deed or claim.
John wonders if they are waiting to be called home.
3019
They are the gray ones, the ragged ones, lingering. A collection of bitter riddles: Bound by the earth but no longer in its embrace; whispers without speech; regret without recollection. Men of no living nation, bearing standards of smoke, and breathing, breathless, half-recollected songs of ash. Faces and voices worn to sameness as rocks on a riverbed, Is and Yous now faded to an eternal We.
We wait.
Then, the summons.
Memories stir, time folds in on itself as a weather-worn pennant. They will go, then, and cross the distance, cross the un-hallowed ground that stands between them and release.
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no subject
Date: 2012-03-03 02:06 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-03-03 02:33 am (UTC)I love this: Memories stir, time folds in on itself as a weather-worn pennant.
So maybe running on a cold trail, but I googled "March 8, 1916" after reading this. Are we looking at the aftermath of the Battle of Dujaila up there?
no subject
Date: 2012-03-03 04:31 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-03-03 05:04 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-03-03 05:07 am (UTC)Alas, no, I was channelling Tolkien at the Somme--hadn't even occurred to me to give the date a one for one correspondence, but now that you mention it... Like I don't have enough plotbunny madness going on here, already... ;)
no subject
Date: 2012-03-03 05:07 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-03-03 10:07 am (UTC)- Erulisse (one L)
no subject
Date: 2012-03-03 11:18 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-03-03 11:54 pm (UTC)(Then again, everyone is named John...um yes that's my story and I'm sticking to it...)
no subject
Date: 2012-04-10 12:13 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-04-10 12:14 am (UTC)