Catherina - Day 18

Corporal had not slept that night.

23:00:

He just finished the last of his paperwork – a written application for a place in the new world. He signed off: first the printed initials, then the full signature in cursive, and finally the date. The pen laid aside, and the paper folded, and reopen, and folded again decisively. The tip of his nail sharpened the crease, adding a final touch before he put the sheet away.

23:30:

Like his fellow soldiers, Corporal fell asleep by the touch of his pillow. He now was sound asleep, with one hand slipping out of the cover as if reaching for something invisible. Corporal frowned lightly, the two bushy brows came closer to each other, nearly touching yet separated by a slight bump of wrinkle. Was he dreaming? Corporal tilted his head, lips stretching into a painfully straight line.

00:17:

Sitting at the edge of his bed, he stared through the window at the starless sky. Fire lighting up the pigeon-grey drop, sending choking smoke swirling up from nadir to zenith - the very city that raised him burnt down to ashes, while thousands and thousands of emerging ghosts shrieking with utter grief.

Outside, the night was peaceful, and so was the city underneath. The soft breathing of its inhabitants harmonized into a quiet chorus, lingering in the chilly late autumn air.

Corporal shivered at the mere remembrance of the nightmare that had awakened him minutes ago, and now that he was incapable of sleeping, he put up his clothes and walked outside the bedroom.

00:20:

The full apartment was asleep, and he tiptoed down the staircase, feeling as though him a kid hunting for the forbidden cookies hidden in the kitchen. He smiled inwardly at this analogy -Oh, he was that greedy little boy who could empty the whole cookie can in a single night. Now he remembered his Mama, Papa, Granny, and Grandpappy, who he had only seen in Papa’s album. They had long deceased, buried in the common graveyard behind the church, where his whole family lay - father, grandfather, and great grandfather. The entire family history started here, prevailed in the city’s air, and embedded in every brick and stone.

Someone’s snoring had penetrated through walls, reaching Corporal’s ear. That lively sound of a breathing body soothed him, pulling his disturbed soul away from the dead and back to the living. He turned towards the direction of the snoring, imagining a man – must be the old bachelor living upstairs with his equally old pup – fast asleep at this moment, perhaps with a glass of good-night wine. Indeed, he could see nothing, as darkness surrounded him like a suffocating fog. Corporal continued with the stairs, all too familiar that he could walk in ease without sight.

1:00:

He had been on the streets for over half an hour now, and even the most sleepless night workers had gone indoor. Corporal strolled along the middle of the roads, enjoy the extending rails of yellow lights all by himself. He was walking towards the graveyard, fear for life had been away from him ever since his first sight of war: numerous battles, casualties, and villages and towns rampaged by the revolutionists and themselves. Having witnessed the death of faithful and faithless, young and old, men and women, loved and abandoned, he developed an excessive cherish his life, almost too careful with every movement he made.

1:42:

The fire broke out. It started at the lower town, where wooden structure still dominated and flats standing shoulder to shoulder. Corporal, at that very moment, stopped by the church that marked the intersection of the lower and upper town. He had seen the light, the orange flame which had been shifting, distorting, and spreading, awaiting the entire city with its mighty warmness.

In front of the church, Corporal hesitated, pulling his trench coat tighter. That sight kindled a gleam of fear – the burning battlefield after waves of bombings, and a want to protect his home (soon would not be) and his family’s – the ashes and the remains of this city in the dream. Corporal pounded the church’s gate, and when the reverend, who had just graduated from college, appeared with slumber eyes, demanded that he toll the bell for alarm.

At once, Corporal began to run in the direction of that incompatible flare.

1:50:

He arrived at the site just when the firemen came. Now the fire had gone beyond its original block, crossing the streets, fast-spreading towards the opposite building. Another tolling of the bell – another fire, this time at the upper town.

1:58:

Another toll announced the third verse of an elegy for this city. Corporal, along with a few other men with military backgrounds, was sure that the revolutionists had planted the fire. What perfect timing: the main force of the local troop was yet to be back – they had gone north to a town recently taken by the revolutionists. The late autumn air was dry – encouraging any seeds of flame to grow into an enormous scale of the disaster.

The men couldn’t decide at once what they should do. Corporal, as the most experienced soldier in the group, had taken the lead, ordering one of them to go to the troop immediately, two to the latest fire, two to assist the second on at upper town, and one to the townhouse ……

Corporal himself stayed at the lower town, assisting the firemen, witness the burning down of where his cookie can once hide.

3:00:

A fourth fire had been initiated. The police had caught two revolutionists, but another two had slid. The two, under the immense pressure of gun powder, confessed three other locations where they laid fuel – to commemorate the “seventy-seven martyrs” killed in combat last week.

3:22:

They had caught the other two revolutionists, one of them shot at the sight of pulling gun — no more fire. Corporal honored the police captain with a pat on the shoulder, and yet they should not relax, because only the second fire at the upper town, where houses were mainly brick and stone, had been contained. The rest three were spreading, extending their coverage to nearly half of the city.

They were saving people who stood stiffly and confusedly in the night, staring blankly at their homes that had turned into ashes. Men and women were carrying water in the fastest carriages from the nearest lake, throwing occasionally live fishes into the flame. Corporal was giving out commands, explaining to so and so what had happened and that he did not know when the troop would arrive. The entire working population distributed themselves at four locations, pouring into fire their rage against revolutionists and war.

4:35:

The fire continued, while the first trace of dawn rose at the horizon.

Emergency report from the church tower: a unit of revolutionists was fast approaching from the east.

How many? – Thirty to forty.

What about other directions? – Can’t tell, still too dark.

How many people can we gather? – Less than forty men, Corporal.

What about women? – Together would make about sixty.

…… - Corporal?

Corporal made his orders and led his forty men and women towards the east. They were the front line against the revolutionists. They could hurt, die, or be captured – but they were the guard of this city, and thus they could not lose. The longer the shield persists, the better.

photo credit: https://static01.nyt.com/images/2020/01/03/opinion/03flanagan1/merlin_164266401_a35a2d0a-0a32-4613-b2fd-4b152d464f11-superJumbo.jpg