"Chronicle of a Death Foretold" by Aliana

[aliana1.livejournal.com]

B2MeM Challenge:
O68: Time Travel (Crackfic); War (Economy); March 7th: Denethor and the palantír (March 3019)
O67: Chronicle of a Death Foretold - Gabriel García Marquez (Magic and Real)
Format: Drabble pair
Genre: Drama
Rating: Teen
Warnings: Disturbing imagery; author's notes that are longer than an actual drabble
Characters: JRR Tolkien, Denethor
Summary: Who's the crazy one?


Chronicle of a Death Foretold

1916

In the recruiters’ queue, a soldier is still a “warrior”; a horse is still a “steed.” The dead are the fallen. To France, then, with books of verse in their pockets, crying God for Harry, England and St. George.

At the Somme, they do cry “God.” They cry God because the dead are so heavy and mangled where they have dropped; because the air is poison-thick and the trenches reek of rot; because pale slender chivalry bleeds out at the bottom of a shell-crater. The lamps have flickered out over Europe, and sensible despair gleams grey beyond the barbed wire.

3019

John, taking notes, looks over the Steward’s shoulder.

So. He’s overreached himself, this crownless ruler, exhausted his coin. His hands tremble. He sees far, but he sees not—this is the thing. His desolation is one with his blindness, with his folly. John stands between marble walls, the relief of a creator suffusing him: he knows the ending, knows that hope is the truth, that warriors and steeds triumph still—

And Denethor turns suddenly from the palantír and looks him in the eye—

—the whistle and thunder of bombardment. John shakes himself, puts away his notebook, goes to his station.



Notes:

Cry ‘God’ for Harry, England and St. George! Shakespeare, Henry V, Act III Scene 1

The lamps are going out all over Europe. We shall not see them lit again in our lifetime. Attributed to Sir John Grey, 1914

In the discussion of the use of chivalric language in World War I (and an extremely literary army), I basically owe everything to Paul Fussell’s The Great War and Modern Memory

I should also add that I wrote this after reading altariel’s Total War, which incorporates the same major prompts. So if I’ve imbibed any of her themes here, it’s through admiration.