Poppies

Boom!

The Earth explodes.

And I’m nowhere near my body, I’m up in the air, I’m flying, and maybe what they say is true and you do remain conscious for a few seconds after they cut your head off. Not sure if the theory still holds when it’s blown off your body though.

Shrapnel sings through the air. I’m too surprised to feel it. Too dead maybe. You know you might die. As they start dying next to you, you realize fast that you might be next. Just another number. You know you might die. But you never think you will.

“De la chair à canon,” said Deroux this morning, before the daily slaughter began and they shot him to pieces. Cannon flesh. French is a colourful language.

That’s Deroux there, a few feet away from me (well, some parts of me), still leaking into the ground. I seem to have rained on him. The mud isn’t grey any more. The sky is grey, all the way to the horizon. Our uniforms are as grey as our corpses. Our battleground is close to a dried up riverbed, which we crossed to get here - four dead there, Perrot, Thompson, and two I don’t know - and the mud was grey to begin with - lifeless, grass churned out of it, the earth all up-and-down lumpy from being blown up.

My life doesn’t flash before my eyes. That bit they were wrong about. Only I find myself thinking about certain bits of it as I observe the infinite fall of my shattered flesh. Some of it surprises me - things I had thought forgotten. My mother’s face - dead too young for me to know her, but I remember her now, a dark, seductive woman whose carmine smile reminds me eerily of my own. That time my cold, stern brother, who I swear has never smiled at me in his life, bought me my first atomic firebombs and walked round town with me on his shoulders, not minding when I clung to his hair with sticky hands. I laugh - if Emma knew why I love firebombs so much, she wouldn’t scold me for eating them. She always did find it a shame about us not being friendly, like she is with her own brother.

Emma. A jump forward in time, and the brother in question is my bunk mate at school. We would fight so much, but we were the best of friends. Charlie he was called, and one day he dared me to climb the theatre curtains on the stage, and I brought them both - and the railing - tumbling down on his head.

I remember the embers of the bonfire in front of which I met Emma. It was the fifth of November - the sixth really - and everyone had gone home except for me, her and Charlie. I was staring into the dying flames in a rare contemplative mood most probably brought on by drink, and she asked what I could possibly be thinking about. I said I was wondering what I would do if I knew I was going to die tomorrow, in a war, say, and she said “Of course, the answer is ‘love’”.

So I did. I loved her - still love her, with the bright, firey passion of first love, that night and every one after it. I didn’t care what people thought. She did, and I regret that now, because without me there to protect her, who will?

Charlie died last week, in the hospital tent. He made me promise to take care of her, the bastard. He knew I couldn’t promise, but he made me do it anyway. I’m a traitor now. I made the others promise to kill me before I got to making them promise things. At least they won’t have to do that.

I’m floating in the air above a carnage. Watching it happen. Being dead does odd things to your nerves. I know why we were fighting. I signed up - Emma made me, mostly, I didn’t want to leave her on her own, white feather or no - but I did understand why we had to win the war. Still, it seems unimportant now. I should have stayed home. I should have kept her safe. Sadness as grey as the landscape fills what’s left of me as the last of the soldiers dies or flees the battleground. I can’t tell who has won. I don’t care.

That’s when I see it, right in the middle of the field: a single poppy. Poppy. The name on the last letter Emma sent me. I should have known I’d die before I got to see her. Should have known it was too good to be true. A little girl. A daughter. Poppy.

The sun dips under the blanket of clouds, and suddenly the sky is awash with flame. Colour seeps into the land, animating the corpses for a second. Blood shines as the earth drinks it in, turning death into life.

I wanted to win the war for Poppy. My baby, my little girl who I’ve never seen, but I love her.

I love her.

I love her.

The Baby

Exercise: write from a point of view that is the polar opposite of yours.

"Who's a gorgeous wee boy? Who's a - oh, look, he's smiling! Who's got a beautiful smile? You, that's right! Yes, you do! Aaaaahbrprprprpr-"

My sister Imogen raspberries into the child's neck and is rewarded with a chortle. She does it again. And again. I turn the volume up on the TV.

I never got all the hype around babies. I mean, sure, some of them are cute, once they've grown hair and can smile and stuff. Some. This one's not too bad - big black eyes, long eyelashes, the beginnings of curls. 

Most of them look like aliens to me, though. And that's the least of what I hate about them.

"Ah, I think he's done a poo..."

That, on the other hand...

Imogen gets up and takes the baby to her bedroom, which has been transformed into a nursery for the day. I follow her just so that I can shut the door on them both.

There's a whole plethora of other horrible things in between how they look and how they smell that I also don't like. How people just go crazy around them. That brain-shattering cry of theirs. Or how much time they take up, and space, and money. The year Lydia was born was my last year of guitar classes.

Of course I don't blame Lydia for that. She didn't ask to be born. I blame my mother for wanting a boy so badly that she tried for a fourth child she couldn't afford.

Bitter? Me?

The problem with not liking babies is that people think you're a monster. Which is stupid, because really, just because you don't like chocolate (which is another much-loved thing that I hate) doesn't mean you're going to go into a supermarket and take a flamethrower to the confectionary aisle. And chocolate doesn't turn into people.

Imogen returns, holding the baby, who is only slightly better-smelling.

"Would you hold him for me while I put the changing things away?"

The first and last time I held him was this morning, and he wailed and writhed so much I nearly dropped him. She has been trying to get me to try again - while sitting down - ever since. I give her a look that tells her exactly how crazy I think she is.

"Give him to Tiff."

Imogen sighs and gives him to Tiffany, who shrugs and takes him. She sits him on her knees and jiggles him a bit. He laughs. She raises an eyebrow and tries again. To Tiffany, babies are mostly boring until a certain age, and then they turn into curiosities. To me, babies are terrifying.

Especially since you're having one.

Shut. Up. Brain.

 

"I read on Cracked that babies this age are practically telepathic," she remarks. "They can tell how you're feeling even if you're smiling at them."

"That explains this morning, then," I say. She lies him down on her knees and tickles his feet. No particular response. She tickles his stomach instead and gets a laugh. Tiffany proceeds to systematically test all the parts of his body that would usually be ticklish.

"When's Meriem picking him up?" she asks.

"In two hours and twenty-three minutes," I say, trying to ignore the chortling. "Please stop making him laugh, I'm trying to watch this."

"It's Jersey Shore, Lex. Even I find the baby more interesting than that."

"The stupidity of grown adults is far more fascinating than that thing you're holding" I retort, just as Imogen enters the room.

"You're horrible, Lexie, you know that?" she says.

"Thank you, Gin, I love you too."

She ignores my use of the hated nickname and tries to take the baby back, but Tiffany's in full experimentation mode and waves her off. She pokes him in the tummy. He writhes. She rights him, pokes him in the side. He giggles.

"I didn't think you liked babies, Tifa," Imogen says.

"I don't not like them," Tiff says noncommittally.

"Still, I've never seen you like this with one. With Lydia, for instance."

"I was six when Lydia was born. I had better things to do."

"Well I was seven and I didn't," Gin retorts. "Give him to Lex, she needs the therapy."

"I'm pretty sure he doesn't," I growl.

"Oh for God's sake, Lexie, how are you going to manage when-"

"IMOGEN!" I shout. Everyone jumps. I grit my teeth. "Just shut. The fuck. Up."

The baby starts to cry. I throw the remote into the sofa a lot harder than necessary. It bounces off and hits my thigh. I ignore it and flee to my room before they see me cry. Stupid hormones.

I know perfectly well how I'm going to manage: badly. If at all. Adoption seems like a brilliant idea right now, care babies or not. Even a care baby would be better off than one with me for a mother.

Le Onde

The same chain of notes, over and over, sustained by the pedal, a wave in minor evoking lightplay at the bottom of the ocean. Her tempo is imperfect, but the image is still clear: my sister is learning Le Onde.

I started out teaching her the intro, which is simple enough even for a beginner, and when she'd mastered that and wished to learn the next part, I taught her the right hand notes of that.

"Eh, j'ai réussi !"

I applaud, outwardly approving, while in my heart my inner child leaps with joy at the prospect of another musician in the family. An apprentice. That would be...

Let's not get ahead of ourselves.

"J'ai re-réussi !"

"Bravo ! Continue..."

"J'suis trop douée."

"Oui."

She keeps practising, the volume turned down low, and the sweet melody is perfect for the quiet of the evening and the dim yellow light in our almost-tidy living room. I could almost be at peace right now.

She gets up, about to leave.

"Eh, reviens !"

"Quoi ?"

"Joue encore, ça m'inspire."

She laughs, then realizes I'm serious. Looking bemused, but flattered, she sits back on the piano stool and practises some more until I've finished my piece.