Monday, April 4, 2011

Five Years

Prompt: Decorated

Source: oneword.com

Original Airdate: August 5, 2010

Response:

Hakan looked out over the desolate field. Gangly weeds were growing thigh-high out of the cracked earth. The earth itself was mounded up and broken by enormous rocks.

He sat shakily on one of the gray masses, worn semi-smooth by sun and rain and time. Hakan knew that if he looked far enough he would perhaps catch a glimpse of a small, tired farmhouse, more brown than red, but he did not bother to look.

He looked instead down into the dry earth, the cracks like war trenches. He shuddered, though the sun was warm - too warm, even - on his back. The air, though it was open and sun-touched, smelled of death and gunpowder and screaming.

Hakan's fingers ran over and over the surface of the box he held. It was made of soft leather and it had a nice, sophisticated weight in his palm. He did not look at it, just ran his fingers over and over the neat surface. He knew that it was just like the farmhouse - a thing he would rather not see.

It had been five years since Hakan had sat on that spot, resting in the gracious sun which, at that time, had smelled of life and the earth. It had been five years of war since he had seen that farmhouse, at that time more red than brown.

Looking down at the little trenches that crisscrossed the ground at his feet, Hakan let the leather box fall to the ground. He did not look at the shining trinket that tumbled out of it, holding his hands over his eyes. The trenches at his feet roared with the scent of screams and his medal gleamed like the clean windows of a farmhouse, once more red than brown.

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